“Who should go first since, we both seem to require the same assistance?” Lucy asked after she finally blinked herself out of her almost hypnotic perusal of him.
“Ladies first, of course,” Roderick answered immediately, which elicited another sigh from her.
“I don’t know if I want to,” Lucy admitted, fidgeting once more.
Roderick could empathize. “What’s the trouble, Luce?” he asked, using the overly familiar name he had used since they were children.
“I truly think I’m ready to wed. More than ready, really, since I had those two aborted Seasons due to my grandmother’s death and then when Belle got so sick with little Roger. But now that I’ve come to the pinch, well, it’s a pinch. What if I choose badly? Belle says I ought to be falling in love, but I don’t want what she and Robbie have. It’s so messy.”
“And you hate mess and fuss.”
“Exactly.” Lucy’s smile was so filled with delight that Roderick almost had his head turned.
“But why do you think a love match is messy?”
“I’ve been living with Belle and Robert for nearly a decade,” she replied drily. “They love each other intensely and they’re very loud about it. Both the good times and the bad. Because the other side of their great love is their great rows. I don’t think I could live like that. Not after our childhood. I don’t know how Robert does it, since he lived through our parents’ separation. I, and Bert too, I suppose, was the result of their reconciliation, so I never witnessed their greatest row. But they had great blow ups when I was a child. The whole household knew of it. And it scared me silly. Mother claims to love her new husband but it’s a more sedate, cool regard. So I think she just likes the word. While I don’t care terribly for her husband, I want that sort of union, where you tolerate your mate sufficiently to spend time together, but it’s not the fire and ice that Belle and Robert have.”
“I see,” Roderick answered. And he did, at least to a degree, even though he didn’t feel the same way. His brothers all had found a wife to love and seemed blissfully happy in their unions. Rod himself wished he could have something similar but was more determined to arrange for his own and his friends’ futures than to find a love match for himself. He hoped he could find someone he could grow close to with time, at least. He shoved the thoughts aside. They weren’t talking about him. “What makes you think you’ll choose badly?”
Lucy’s laugh sounded forced. “Because the only decisions I’ve ever had to make up until now have been clothing related, and I’m not always satisfied with them. How am I to choose something so serious and life affecting as the father of my children?”
Suddenly Rod pictured Lucy surrounded by youngsters, and his breath caught in his throat. He coughed to cover the moment.
“You could ask your brother or mother to help you. Or your chaperone, surely that’s part of her role,” he pointed out.
“Belle would love to and Robert expects to. But they don’t have the same power of logic as you. You will help me, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Rod answered immediately. “Tell me who you’re considering.”
It was fascinating to watch her expressive face as it flooded with the heat of embarrassment. Even though she had asked for his help and even intended to summon him to gain his assistance, now that it came time to actually tell him her candidates, she was obviously embarrassed to do so. He couldn’t really blame her. But it was rather adorable to see the usually poised young woman struggling for her composure.
He doubted she would appreciate being described as adorable. It was usually a word one reserved for small animals or young children. Or young ladies embarrassed to be discussing a delicate subject, he supposed.
She squared her shoulders and nodded as though she were reinforcing her courage, and then she pulled a piece of crumpled paper from her pocket. She grinned when she met his gaze after he had noted the condition of the paper.
“I’ve read and reread and rewritten and scratched out this list a time or two,” she said, her phrases disjointed, as though to explain the state of the paper and perhaps even the state of her mind. A shrug followed her words. “It didn’t help in some ways, but in others it was more than helpful.”
Rod nodded. “In what ways was it helpful?”
“Well, my list started with ten,” she said as heat again coloured her cheeks. “That sounds odiously conceited, doesn’t it? But my father did leave me rather well provided for and the gentlemen have been kind this Season, no doubt as a result.”
“It’s not only your dowry they’re interested in, my lady, I’m sure of it.”
Her colour deepened and Roderick tried hard not to stare. “You’re too kind,” she murmured.
“Very well, enough procrastinating,” Rod said with a firm nod of his own. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Or whom you’re thinking it of.”
His odd wording made Lucy relax, which had been his intention, and she released her white-knuckled grip on her paper.
“Wiltshire, Hampton, Peters, and Renton.”
She said it in such a jumble and rush that Roderick had to blink as though to reorder his thoughts for the mouthful to make sense. Amusement filled him, but he wouldn’t laugh at her.
Before he could respond, though, they were interrupted by someone hailing him.
“Roderick,” Gilbert called, “and Miss Scranton, how fortuitous.”
Lucy frowned as her gaze entangled with Roderick’s. “There has been a great deal of fortuitosity going around today,” she said with a quizzical smile.
