Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

“I have never been tempted,” she said.

“Because you cannot be?” he asked her. “Or because it has just not happened?”

“Oh,” she said, sounding cross again, “we are back on the subject. What about you, Mr. Thorne? You must be considerably older than I am. Thirty, at a guess? At least that. Have you never been tempted to marry?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “It happened a couple of weeks or so ago, soon after I had disembarked after a long voyage from America. I was relaxing in the private parlor of the inn at which I had put up for the night, reading and minding my own business, when I was interrupted by the landlord, who had come to beg me to relinquish my claim upon the room, for which I had already paid handsomely. A lady had arrived unexpectedly at the inn and was demanding it. A very important lady . He dared not say no. His business might be forever ruined. When I followed him from the room, prepared to argue the point, I came face-to-face with the lady herself, though I do not doubt I was not intended to do so. Almost instantaneously I gave in to the temptation to give up not only the parlor but also my single state. I decided that Lady Jessica Archer, sister of the Duke of Netherby, would be my wife.”

“What nonsense you speak!” she exclaimed. “You decided that I would be your wife. How dared you then? And how dare you now?” She looked at him sharply. “How did you know who I was?”

“The landlord was obliging enough to provide the information,” he said. “I daresay he thought that knowing who you were would the more readily persuade me to relinquish my claim upon the room.”

“That was unpardonably indiscreet of him,” she said.

“Yes, was it not?” he agreed. “That dour-looking majordomo you had with you would doubtless have had his head if he had known.”

“Mr. Goddard?” she said. “He is Avery’s secretary.”

But it was time to change the subject. He had wanted to shock her, to make it clear to her that he had no interest whatsoever in dallying with her and thus becoming just one more member of the court for which she obviously cared not a fig. He had definitely ruffled her feathers.

“I believe the Pen Ponds are worth a look,” he said. “Shall we find them and then leave the curricle somewhere and enjoy the scenery on foot?”

“Very well,” she said after appearing to consider the matter. “We will walk. We will also talk, Mr. Thorne. If you are to expect that I will even consider your preposterous intention of marrying me, you must answer some questions. You know about me. You knew who I was the very first time you set eyes upon me. I daresay that would account for your interest. All vanity aside, I know I am extremely eligible despite the fact that I am twenty-five years of age. I know nothing whatsoever about you except that you are a kinsman of Lady Vickers and have recently returned to England after spending thirteen years in America. I do not even have more than a nodding acquaintance with Lady Vickers, though Avery has a great deal of respect for Sir Trevor.”

“They are my godparents,” he told her.

“Even that fact does not arouse any great passion for you in my bosom,” she told him. “I doubt any further facts will either, but I like the Pen Ponds, and it would be a shame to have come all this way and not see them.”

“As soon as we are on foot, Lady Jessica,” he told her, “we may enjoy our surroundings at greater leisure while you interview me.”

“Interview?” she said. “As though for employment? As my husband? Very well, Mr. Thorne. Prepare to make yourself irresistible to me. This may be your only chance.”

He could not decide if he liked her or not. Her manner was cold and haughty and had been almost from the moment when she had stepped out of Archer House and looked over his rig while virtually ignoring him. But she had used the word passion a few moments ago and it had set him to wondering if she was capable of feeling any. Something told him she might be. Not that he had thought of his choice of a countess in terms of passion.

And there had been that smile she had leveled upon her brother before she crossed the pavement to his curricle. For a brief moment she had been transformed before his eyes into someone quite different. He had a hankering to see that smile again, but directed at him this time.

Perhaps it was too soon, however, to decide whether he liked Lady Jessica Archer. Or if it would make any difference either way.

He needed a countess rather more than he needed a wife.

Seven

P en Ponds was a rather unfortunate name, Jessica had always thought, for what was in reality two sizable lakes separated by a causeway right in the heart of Richmond Park. One might almost be led to expect a couple of muddy watering holes with a few dejected ducks bobbing in them. They were actually very picturesque. If the Queen’s Ride gave the dual impressions of grandeur and deep seclusion, the Ponds gave more the impression of open countryside, of the elemental intermingling of earth, water, and sky. The birds did not remain hidden here as they did on the Ride, pouring out their songs from the green depths of the woods, but rather called them out with freer abandon as they swooped over the water in pursuit of one another or glided and swam upon its surface.

She ought not to have agreed to walk here. She was not in the right mood for it. She ought to have demanded to be taken back home. Mr. Thorne was quite unpardonably presumptuous.

He was very different from Mr. Rochford, who had called upon her yesterday afternoon an hour after Mr. Thorne left and asked very properly if he might have the honor of driving her in the park later at the fashionable hour. He had even come into the house again when he returned for her, to ask her mother if he might be permitted to do so—Mama had been home by then. Jessica had been a bit annoyed at his doing so, of course, as she was no young girl and it was quite unnecessary, but even so, he had erred on the side of correctness. He had conversed pleasantly with her before they got caught up in the exchange of greetings and chitchat with acquaintances they met in the park, and he had been unfailingly charming. He had smiled without ceasing, as he had done the night before, but really it was a handsome smile, and it was far better than a scowl.

She did not find Mr. Thorne nearly as amiable a man. If Mr. Rochford hoped to marry her, as he very well might—he was, after all, about to become heir to an earldom and she would be a brilliant match for him—he had not so much as hinted that he intended to do so, just as though she were a commodity to be purchased at his will.

The seat of Mr. Thorne’s curricle was narrow enough that her shoulder or elbow or hip had constantly been nudging against him during the journey here as the vehicle swayed around bends or bounced over uneven patches of road that were all too numerous. But somehow she was far more aware of him now that they were walking side by side, not touching. Physically aware—of his height, of the breadth of his shoulders, of the muscular shapeliness of his long legs encased in tight pantaloons and Hessian boots, of his aura of masculinity, whatever that was supposed to mean. Good heavens, he was not the first handsome gentleman with whom she had ever walked. She could not recall being aware of any of those other men to the point of discomfort, almost suffocation. She had not been uncomfortable yesterday with Mr. Rochford, despite the admiration in his eyes whenever he looked at her and the speculative glances with which they had been generally regarded in Hyde Park.

She was markedly uncomfortable with Mr. Thorne.