Resenting?There was a whole world of meaning behind that one word, Estelle thought. How could anyone resent inheriting an earldom and a property like this and—probably—wealth untold? But it was very clear there were heavy burdens from his past that he had shared with no one except two unnamed persons, possibly his aunt and uncle. And there was the fact that he had never had the chance to set things right with his father. There was the fact that he had sent his stepmother away to Prospect Hall before coming back here himself. There was the fact that Maria hated him and was seemingly unwilling to forgive him forwhatever he had done to her and her mother. Had he sent them away just because they were not his blood relatives? But that would have been ridiculously petty, and Estelle could not believe it had been as simple as that.
It was becoming a bit tedious to keep telling herself that she really did not want to know, that apart from a natural sort of curiosity she had no wish to understand him better. But oh, she really did not want to like him. She really,reallydid not want to start finding him attractive. The very thought gave her the shivers. There was no warmth in him. Oh, but yes, there was. There was nolightin him, though. He had admitted it himself.
The light went out of my life.
Twenty-four years ago, when his mother died.
Had he resented his father’s second marriage, which, if Maria was to be believed last evening, had been a sudden one and one in which there had been a great disparity in age?
“What I need,” the Earl of Brandon said abruptly, half drawing the same book out of the bookcase once more before yet again pushing it back into place, “is a countess.”
Acountess.Not awife.Even his chosen word was a bit chilling.
“But even in that choice,” he said, “there is little freedom. Only more responsibility. To choose someone of suitable birth and breeding. Someone who will know how to make a home of this place and be a welcoming hostess for visitors both here and in London. Someone who will be kind to my sister and help settle her into a meaningful life either here or in a marriage. Someone who will bear the children I am duty bound to beget. Particularly a son, of course. Preferably more than one.”
Estelle was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. “That cannever be guaranteed,” she said. “Some women bear only daughters. Some are barren.”Sometimes the man is incapable.But she did not say that aloud.
“Nothingis certain,” he said. “Even an apparently settled life can change totally and without warning within an hour. Within amoment.But when one has great responsibility, Lady Estelle, one really ought to make a serious attempt at organizing oneself, doing one’s duty, planning a future as well as one is able for the security of one’s dependents.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It is all very well, is it not, to consider the lilies of the field, which neither toil nor spin, as the Bible urges us to do, and conclude that we ought to model our lives upon their example and do nothing but enjoy life and allow fate to carry us along as it will? People are not lilies. People do need to plan.”
“I wish you would marry me,” he said.
For a moment she did not trust her ears. Hehadspoken rather softly. Also quite distinctly.
“What?”She stared, wide-eyed, at his broad back until he turned to look across the room at her. Or, rather, tofrownacross the room.
“I wish you would marry me,” he said again. “We are equal in birth. We are not very far apart in age. We are both unattached. At least, I assume you are, though it surprises me. You are past the first blush of youth and must have received any number of eligible offers. Your beauty alone would make that inevitable, but you have far more than just beauty to recommend you. Perhaps you have waited for love. If so, it would seem to have eluded you until you are past the age at which you can continue to expect it. I wish you would consider me, then.”
She had listened to a few proposals of marriage whenshe had not been able to avert them. She had never heard anything remotely like this one. And never before had a marriage proposal been so totally unexpected. She had always been able to prepare herself, plan something to say that would soften the blow of her refusal. This time, however...
“Lord Brandon,” she said, “I cannot think of anything whatsoever that would induce me even toconsidermarrying you.”
They gazed at each other for what seemed a long while before the pencil Estelle did not realize she was holding snapped in two and he nodded briskly.
“Then itistime I returned you to the house,” he said, striding toward her and taking the two pieces of pencil from her nerveless hands and tossing them onto the desk.
He looked into her eyes, his own dark and hard, the frown line still between his brows. He hesitated while Captain pranced and panted at the head of the stairs.
“Accept my apologies for insulting you,” he said curtly, and kissed her hard right on the mouth.
It was not just a brief peck of a kiss. It must have lasted for several seconds while Estelle stood in shock, burned by the heat of him, smelling some combination of shaving soap and leather, and somehow feeling the kiss from her mouth to her toes, butinsideher body rather than outside, with a hideous awareness that threatened to rob her of both breath and control of her knees. She was aware of her hands dangling uselessly by her sides and of a ghastly temptation to set them on either side of his waist or on his shoulders or on either side of his face.
Then his mouth was gone from hers and he took half a step back and indicated the staircase with one hand, his eyes still holding her own. “After you,” he said, hisvoice still curt, just as though he had not recently stopped the world and set it spinning again in the opposite direction. And otherwise discomposing her. And outraging her. And...
Andwhyhad it not occurred to her to use her hands to push him away—and maybe slap his face for good measure?
She preceded him down the staircase, Captain panting at her side, and outside into a light drizzling rain.
Nine
It was not far from the summerhouse to the main house. Right now, however, it seemed an endless distance to Justin, though they hurried along, heads down against the light rain. Too late he remembered that there was an umbrella at the summerhouse. He doubted he would have brought it anyway, though. He would have had to offer her his arm and hold her close to his side so they could share it. As it was, there was a space of three or four feet between them. Captain was loping along in front of them.
Could he have orchestrated a worse disaster if he had tried? He very much doubted it. The idea had come to him last evening.Ideas, rather. Plural. First that Maria was going to need a respectable and socially connected female to present her to society next spring, but he did not have a candidate in mind. His aunts on both his mother’s side and his father’s rarely went to London, and had their own families to occupy them anyway. Maria’s aunts were notmembers of theton.Her great-aunt was too elderly. His second idea had been that he could solve the problem—and a few others for good measure—by marrying and letting his wife sponsor Maria. The third idea was that he was looking at the perfect candidate. Except that she was an impossibility.
And he had realized that last evening.
Lady Estelle Lamarr, that was.
