He turned so abruptly that Alexandra took an automatic step backward. "Stop behaving like a frightened rabbit," he snapped. "I'm the one who's caught in a trap, not you."

A deadly calm settled over Alexandra, banishing everything but her shame. Her small chin lifted, her spine stiffened, and before his eyes Jordan saw her put up a valiant fight for control—a fight she won. She stood before him now, looking incongruously like a proud, boyish queen in refurbished rags, her eyes sparking like twin jewels. "I could not speak in the other room," she said with only a slight tremor in her voice, "because my mother would never have let me, but had you not asked to speak privately to me, I intended to ask to speak to you."

"Say what you have to say and have done with it."

Alexandra's chin lifted even higher at his chilling tone. Somehow she had let herself hope he would not treat her with the same brutal contempt he'd treated her family. "The idea of our marrying is ludicrous," she began.

"You're absolutely right," he snapped rudely.

"We're from two different worlds."

"Right again."

"You don't want to marry me."

"Another bull's-eye, Miss Lawrence," he announced in an insulting drawl.

"I don't want to marry you either," she retorted, humiliated to the core by every unkind word he said.

"That's very wise of you," he agreed caustically. "I'd make an exceedingly bad husband."

"Moreover, I do not wish to be anyone's wife. I wish to be a teacher, as my grandfather was, and to support myself."

"How extraordinary," he mocked sarcastically. "And all this while, I've been harboring the delusion that all girls yearn to snare wealthy husbands."

"I am not like other girls."

"I sensed that from the moment I met you."

Alexandra heard the insult in his smoothly worded agreement, and she almost choked on her chagrin. "Then it's settled. We won't wed."

"On the contrary," he said, and each word rang with bitter fury. "We have no choice, Miss Lawrence. That mother of yours will do exactly as she's threatened. She'll bring me up on public charges before the Court. In order to punish me, she'll destroy you."

"No, no!" Alexandra burst out "She won't do it. You don't understand about my mother. She's—ill—she's never recovered from my papa's death." Unconsciously, she caught at the sleeve of his immaculately tailored grey jacket, her eyes imploring, her voice urgent. "You mustn't let them force you to marry me—you'll hate me forever for it, I know you will. The villagers will forget the scandal, you'll see. They'll forgive me and forget. It was all my fault for stupidly fainting so you had to take me to the inn. I never faint, you see, but I'd just killed a man and—"

"That's enough!" Jordan said harshly, and felt the noose of matrimony tighten inexorably around his neck. Until Alexandra began to speak, he had been searching madly for some means of escape from this dilemma—he had even been ready to seize on her assurance that her mother was likely bluffing. He had, in fact, been preparing to start listing all the reasons why she would hate being married to him—only he had not counted on her selflessly pleading with him not to sacrifice himself on the altar of matrimony for her sake. He had also managed, temporarily, to forget that she had killed a man to save his own life.

He stared down at the proud, pathetic child before him in her shabby gown. She had saved his life at the risk of her own, and in return he had effectively destroyed all her chances of getting a husband. With no husband to lighten her cares, she would be carrying the burden of that bizarre household on her thin shoulders for as long as she lived. He had inadvertently, but effectively, destroyed her future.

Impatiently, he pulled her hand away from his sleeve. "There's no way out of it for either of us," he clipped. "I'll arrange for a special license and we'll be married here within the week. Your mother and your uncle," he said with blistering contempt, "can stay at the local inn. I'll not shelter either of them under my roof."

That last comment caused Alexandra more shamed anguish than anything else he had said to her.

"I'll pay for their lodgings," he said shortly, misunderstanding the reason for her stricken expression.

"It isn't the expense!" she denied.

"Then what's bothering you?" he demanded impatiently.

"It's—" Alexandra turned her head, her gaze traveling desperately over the stultifying formality of the room. "It's everything! It's all wrong. This isn't the way I imagined being married." In her anxiety, she seized on the least of her worries. "I always thought I'd be married in a church in the village, with my best friend—Mary Ellen—to attend me, and all the—"

"Fine," he interrupted shortly. "Invite your friend here, if it will make you easier in the days before the wedding. Give her direction to the butler and I'll send a servant after her. You'll find writing materials in the drawer of that desk over there. You do know how to write, I presume?"

Alex's head jerked as if he had slapped her, and for one brief instant Jordan glimpsed the proud, spirited woman she would someday become. Her blue-green eyes snapped with disdain as she replied, "Yes, my lord, I know how to write."

Jordan stared at the scornful child who was regarding him down the length of her pert nose and felt a glimmer of amused respect that she would dare to look at him thus. "Good," he said curtly.

"—in three languages," she added with regal hauteur.

Jordan almost smiled.

When he left, Alexandra walked rigidly over to the small desk in the corner and sat down behind it. She pulled out a drawer and removed a writing sheet, quill, and inkpot. Too overwrought to concentrate on explaining her predicament, she wrote simply,

Dearest Mary Ellen, please accompany the bearer of this letter and come to me as soon as you may. Disaster has struck and I'm quite horribly desolate! My mother is here and so is Uncle Monty, so your mama needn't worry about your safety. Hurry, please. There isn't much time before I have to leave you—

Two tears welled in Alex's eyes, trembling on sooty black lashes, then they trickled down her cheeks. One by one, they fell in damp splotches onto the letter until she gave up the hopeless struggle and laid her head on her arms, her shoulders shaking with wrenching sobs.

"Something wonderful?" she whispered brokenly to God. "Is this Your idea of wonderful?"