“I know.”
He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip. He should want to lean back in for another kiss. Lord knew he could never seem to get enough of the taste of Catherine. And yet what he and Frannie had shared seemed to be quite…adequate.
Adequete. Not passionate, not fiery, not all-consuming.
Civilized. Not barbaric, not beastly, not untamed.
Proper. Not scandalous, not to be whispered about, not disgraceful.
“What’s wrong?” Frannie asked.
And he realized he was scowling, his brow furrowed so deeply he was going to give himself another one of his blinding headaches.
Shaking his head, he released her and stepped back. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
But something was terribly wrong, because he was doubting his affection for Frannie, something he’d never done.
“Was Catherine at the ball?” Frannie asked.
“She was.”
“Did you dance with her?”
He turned away slightly. “I did.”
Why did he feel guilty? It wasn’t as though he’d bedded her. It had been an innocent dance. But it hadn’t felt innocent.
“What was she wearing?”
“What all ladies wear. A ball gown.”
“You’d make a horrendous society writer.” Frannie returned to her chair behind her desk.
“I’ll wager she looked beautiful.”
“I’ll not take you up on that wager as she always looks beautiful.”
“Why has she not married, do you think?”
“Because she is too opinionated, willful, argumentative. A man wants peace in his household, and with her, a man would never find peace.”
“So you think marriage to me would be peaceful?”
“I do.”
“And that’s what you want? Peace?”
“I want contentment.”
“Do you find me boring?”
“Of course not.”
“Sometimes I wonder, sometimes I fear that I am. I sit here with all these numbers, and they seem so unexciting.”
“Nothing about you is unexciting. I look forward to the time we spend together.” He sat in the chair across from her. “There just seems to be so little of it of late.”
As though to punctuate his words a rap on the door sounded. Luke glanced over his shoulder to see Jim standing uncertainly in the doorway. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, but Jack said he couldn’t get your attention earlier, and I’ve got something I thought you might be interested in.”
