“Yes, I believe so,” she said after hesitating. “A gentleman I have known a long time made me an offer earlier this year. I said no at the time, but he asked if he might renew his addresses at some future date, and I did not say no.”
“It sounds like a grand love story,” he said, turning his head to grin at her. But really, why would she marry for any other reason than love? She was surely made for love with a man who would adore her and count his blessings for the rest of his life
“Well, it is not, of course,” she said. “Perhaps I am a little too old for romantic love. Or perhaps I do not trust it as much as I once did.”
“Now, that sounds purely sad,” he said. And he meant it.I do not trust…? Had love let her down? Perhaps because it had let her husband die? “And too old for romance? Tell that to those two.”
He nodded ahead to the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorchester. Abigail Westcott was at Dorchester’s other side, Lady Estelle Lamarr on his wife’s. The four of them walked with their arms linked. There had been a look about the newlyweds this morning that had made Colin feel a little hot under the collar, though there had been nothing remotely improper in their behavior, just a glow about her person and an intensity about his eyes that could not be put into adequate words but spoke volumes.
“They do look happy,” Elizabeth agreed, “after all of twenty-five hours of marriage. And yes, they are both over forty.”
“I have always thought that I need not consider anything so drastic as marriage for years yet,” he said. “I have only recently turned twenty-six, after all.”
“Drastic?” She chuckled. “Leg shackles and tenants for life and all the other clichés you gentlemen like to use?”
“And establishing a family,” he said, “and setting the tone I would want it to have. Taking up residence somewhere and making a home of it. Deciding where that would be. Making a choice of bride, knowing that I must live with my choice for the rest of my life—and that she would have to live with hers for the rest of her life. Being head of my family. Taking on the responsibility for it. Becoming a man.”
He stopped in sudden embarrassment, especially at those final words. And she had not missed them.
“Do you see yourself as less than a man now, then?” she asked.
“I do not know quite what I meant,” he said. “Becoming decisive, perhaps. Setting down my feet and taking a firm stand, perhaps. Knowing who I am and where I am going. Where I want to go. Where I ought to go. You will be thinking me an utter idiot. And you will probably be right.”
“I think no such thing,” she protested. “Many young men, and young women to a lesser degree, believe they know it all and blunder onward through life reinforcing their opinion of themselves with every ignorant action and never achieving their full potential as men and women and human beings. I think there are definite advantages to knowing early that really one knows very little and must be ever open to learning and changing and adjusting. Oh goodness, listen to me. Or, rather, ignore me, please. Do you have anyone in mind now that you are perhaps maybe beginning to turn your thoughts toward matrimony? Or is it to be a case of tossing a coin to choose among the three you were considering last evening?”
“I have never yet seen a three-sided coin, alas,” he said. “There was someone last Season, the sister of a friend of mine. She was shy and did not take well with theton. I offered her my company on a few occasions and found I liked her. I believe she liked me. But I had a letter from her brother just a week or so ago in which he informed me that her betrothal to a gentleman farmer she has known all her life and apparently loved for years is to be announced over Christmas. So mine was no grand love story, either.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “Were you hurt?’’
“I am almost ashamed to admit I was not,” he said. “I was pleased for her and relieved for myself, to be perfectly honest, since I had never intended my attentions to be misconstrued as courtship. Obviously they were not, however. We are a sad, pathetic pair, Elizabeth. Perhaps we should put ourselves out of our misery and marry each other.”
He said it as a joke. Even so, he felt instantly embarrassed at his own presumption. He andElizabeth?
“Now there is an idea worth considering,” she said, all good humor. “You said you are twenty-six? I am thirty-five. Only a nine-year difference. No one would even remark upon it if it were the other way around—ifyouwere nine years older than I, that is. But I fear it would very certainly be remarked upon this way around. I had better not take you up on your kind offer immediately. I will, however, put you on a list with a few other remote possibilities. I may even use my new leather-bound notebook and pencil for the purpose.”
“Remote?” he said. “Ouch.”
They looked at each other sidelong and both laughed. And oh, helikedher.
“Of course, I was fully aware of the age difference,” he said. “I offered you my arm only because you are old and doddering. All of nine years older than I am. Oh, and I offered my arm because I enjoy your company too. There are certain people with whom one feels an instant affinity, a total comfort, an easy ability to talk upon any subject, even absurdities, without having to resort to the weather and the health of all one’s acquaintances.”
“And I am one of those people?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “In all sincerity, Elizabeth.”
“I am touched,” she said. “In all sincerity, Colin.”
They laughed again, but the wonder was that both of them did mean it. He had never had a female friend before. Friendly acquaintances, yes, but not…Well, there had been no one like Elizabeth.
He wondered if she had always been as she was now. Serenity seemed to hover about her. Even when she was joking and laughing it was there. Perhaps she had been born this way, able to weather the storms of life without succumbing to disillusionment or despair. Even as he thought it, however, he remembered her saying just a few minutes ago that perhaps she did not trust romantic love as much as she once had. And he thought of what she had just said about living and learning and changing and adjusting. Perhaps she had had to earn that inner peace she seemed to have achieved. But how? What disturbing experiences were in her past, apart from the loss of her husband, that was? How had she learned to cope with them?
He had never learned to cope with his own. He had learned only how to bury them deep inside himself. How to run and hide.
“It is heartening to see a mingled family begin to form, is it not?” she said of the four people walking abreast ahead of them. “Note that it is Abby walking at Marcel’s side, while Estelle is on Viola’s.”
“Do you think Dorchester will do something for Abigail Westcott now that she is his stepdaughter?” Colin asked. “Draw her into society, perhaps, and force thetonto overlook her illegitimacy? Help her find a husband worthy of her upbringing?”
“I am sure he would,” she said. “Ifshe wishes it, that is.”
