“Theo, make no mistake. I am not interested in being courted.” That was a lie. She would readily accept his interest. The thrill of it. The joy of being with him. “Nor am I interested in another marriage.”
“No?” He tipped his head. In his gaze stood disbelief.
The lure of him, the charm of him had her imagining what she did want. His lips on hers. His hands on her. His waistcoat, gone. His shirt, gone. Oh, he would be scandalized if he realized what she really wanted. How she wanted him.
“You don’t like marriage?” he asked, incredulous.
She rolled a shoulder. What she didn’t like was this conversation. “It has its merits.”
“You wouldn’t like to be married to me?”
Yes.She bit her lower lip.
“I see. Well then, we must remedy that. I know the cure. Married to me, you would have fun.”
She hooted, even as hot tears stung her eyelids. “How so?”
“We would eat biscuits in bed. Biscuits with orange marmalade.”
He remembered orange marmalade with crisp biscuits were her favorite? “And get crumbs in the bed?”
“And spill hot chocolate, I’m afraid.”
What else would we do in bed?
He must have read her mind because his expression melted into rapt desire. “We’d have to have a very large bed. I’d get one made, longer and wider than you’ve ever seen.”
Every muscle in her body quivered with expectation. “Theo.”
“We’d go south from home to Rotherham where I’d show you our iron foundries. Our ploughs are the very best.”
One of their first discussions when they met twelve years ago had been about new farming methods and equipment. They’d discussed threshers and ploughs. Then she had persuaded him to invest in iron production. Over the past decade, he had made a second fortune producing ploughs. “I’ve read of your success with them and how many have improved their crop yields using them,” she said. “I was always gratified you’d taken my advice to invest in smelting plants and foundries.”
“I never knew how you came to know so much about iron and farming,” he said with a measure of awe in his voice.
“My father, like you, was devoted to the health and prosperity of his tenants. He was always searching for new ways to improve their lot. Sadly, he had not the means to buy many ploughs or threshers for them. But you have and you’ve made me very proud.”
“As you have made me with your charity for orphans.”
“You know about that, Theo?” She was struck by his attention to her patronage of a small London orphanage.
“As you have heard, I read newspapers daily. You, my dear, are my favorite subject.”
“I’m gratified you know so much about me,” she said with humility, wonder and the certain knowledge that he should not read about her, think about her…or even be here to pursue her.
He toyed with two of her fingers. “There are a few things I don’t know.”
Dare she ask?The intimacy of such exchanges could draw them to each other again with renewed awe.
He grinned and let off twiddling with her fingers. “Your worst trait? What is it?”
“Ah. I chew my toe nails.”
He hooted.
She loved to see him laugh. “I am not as careful as I should be about my attire. I go for walks in the rain in my dancing slippers.”
He leaned close, his sandalwood and citrus cologne luring her to sharing all her secrets. “You once danced in the rain in them.”
