“I have never felt any strong inclination to give up my freedom,” he told her. “And I have been busy. I have had an active social life too, but I have never met that one woman who stands out from the crowd.” He was almost smiling when he glanced at her, no doubt remembering what he had said to her earlier about her court of admirers.
“Yet,” she said, “almost immediately after you set foot upon English soil you saw a stranger at an inn where you were putting up and decided that you would marry her?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. “Did you fall violently in love with me at first sight?” She lifted her chin and frowned at him. She was feeling angry, because the answer was very obviously no. She did not even wait for his answer. “I know why. You have come into an inheritance that cannot be ignored. Property. A house? An estate? A stately home, perhaps, situated within a park? And a fortune upon which to live there in some luxury?”
“All of those things, yes,” he admitted.
“So,” she said, “you came back to England in order to live the privileged life of an English gentleman. You came to take on the responsibilities of running your estate and tending to the needs of all who are dependent upon you. I daresay there are a number of servants and laborers. And tenant farmers, perhaps?”
“Yes,” he said. “All of those.”
“And you decided that all this could be far more effectively accomplished if you had a wife,” she said. “Someone to see to the smooth running of your home, someone to manage the indoor servants and to be an accomplished hostess to your neighbors. Someone to ensure that there are sons to inherit your property and fortune when you die. Someone with the experience you lack because you have been gone so long. Someone whose lineage is impeccable and whose consequence will not be questioned by those with whom you must deal after a thirteen-year absence.”
There was nothing so abnormal about what he had set out to do. She felt chilly, almost as though the blood were running cold in her veins. Would that cloud never pass over?
“Yes,” he said.
Had his vocabulary been reduced to one word? But at least he was not trying to beat about any bushes. He was not trying to pretend that he really had fallen violently in love with her.
“You have approached the issue as you would any business matter, in other words,” she said. “In a measured, dispassionate way. In a typically masculine way.” She ignored the fact that she had been contemplating marriage in just such a way herself. “What was your aunt like, Mr. Thorne?”
“My aunt?” His eyebrows rose at the apparent non sequitur. “She was quiet, sweet, unassuming, and unassertive.”
“And totally dominated by the men in her life, I suppose,” she said.
He thought about it. “It would have been hard not to be dominated by my uncle,” he said.
“As I thought,” she told him with a curt nod. “Your life has been very lacking in females, has it not, Mr. Thorne? Your mother died when you were no more than a baby. Your aunt was unassertive. Your female cousins married and moved away soon after you went to live with your uncle. Your kinsman in Boston was a widower without children. Your business partner is a man.”
“You are right,” he said after thinking again for a moment.
She would have loved to ask if he had had mistresses, but there were some subjects no lady would touch upon. Ladies were not supposed to know even that such persons existed or that many men used their services. Ladiesdidknow, of course. They were not stupid. At least, most of them were not.
“You know exactly what you are looking for in a wife, then,” she said. “You have a list of attributes in your head. You may even have written them down—perhaps during the voyage here.”
Again there was that suggestion of amusement she had detected in him on a number of occasions, though he did not smile. “I have a good memory, Lady Jessica,” he said. “I believe it is women who like to make written lists.”
How did he know that? But of course he was quite right. How else could a woman plan a party?
“But there is a mental list, is there not?” she insisted. “Or was. You looked at me back at that inn and mentally checked off every point. I was eveneasy on the eyes.I wonder what number on the list that requirement was. Close to the bottom, at a guess, if not right at the bottom. And were there any qualities of character on the list at all? Or are women not supposed to have qualities of character?”
“You are offended,” he said.
“Yes, I am offended.” She looked up to see that the sun was about to break free of that big cloud. At last. “At your presumption and your arrogance in assuming that I will marry you merely because you are prepared to condescend to marry me. And also—”
“It is hardly condescension to decide to marry the daughter of a duke,” he said. “I am not myself a duke or a royal prince or a king. I am therefore somewhere below you on the social scale.”
“I am thedaughter of a duke,” she said, sketching a few circles in the air with one hand. “And that sums it all up, does it not? But that daughter of a duke, Mr. Thorne, is also a person. When you looked at me—at that inn, at the ball two evenings ago, in Avery’s drawing room yesterday, here today—did you see aperson? Did you seeme? I very much doubt it. You saw and you see the daughter of a duke.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and tipped his head slightly to one side. His eyes and the upper part of his face were half hidden in the shade cast by the brim of his tall hat. He looked awfully . . . appealing. Which fact annoyed her more than anything else. She did not know him either. She knew things about him, more now than she had known half an hour ago, but she did not knowhim. Why should one find another person appealing based entirely upon physical attributes? He might be an axe murderer for all she knew. Or a miserly businessman who cheated his clients and mistreated his employees and spent his evenings counting his cash.
He obviously had nothing to say in reply to her outburst. Perhaps he did not even know what she was talking about.
Did she?
And when had they stopped walking?
