“But I am not our stepmother,” she said. “I could not do what she did. I would not take the risk. I could not marry a man with an unsavory past and be happy with him, no matter how much he had reformed. I want someone...”
“Perfect?” he suggested when she paused.
“Well.” She laughed softly and turned to swing her legs to the floor. “It is not too much to ask, surely, when I have waited so long. Someone perfect?”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But it may explain why you are twenty-five and unwed.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “What are you looking for in a wife?”
“I am not,” he said.
“But when you do?” she asked. “You are not intending to remain single all your life, are you?”
“I could not do it even if I wanted to,” he said. “I have the succession to take care of. I am Papa’s only son. And he has only the one brother. I cannot imagine that Uncle André will ever marry. Can you?”
“No,” she said. She was dearly fond of her uncle, but he reminded her of an overgrown boy, ever cheerful but sadlyaddicted to all forms of gaming and convinced that the very next bet he made would bring him the fortune that would set him up for life. Meantime his pockets were almost always to let, and Estelle suspected he was never free of debt.
“I do not know what type of woman I will look for when I start searching,” Bertrand said. “But definitely not someone perfect, Stell. Such a one sounds to me like more than a bit of a snore.”
“Someone imperfect, then,” she said.
“She sounds infinitely more interesting,” he said. “Quite irresistible, in fact. Introduce me if you should meet her before I do. Are you going to ring for some tea? Or shall I?”
“I am on my feet,” she said, standing up to prove it. “I will ring.”
Itdidsound a bit dull when put into words—someone perfect.But then perfection would preclude dullness, would it not? A dull man could not possibly be perfect, for he would lack that certain something that would make him perfect. And if she thought any more upon these lines, her head would surely make a complete turn on her neck and make her dizzy at the very least.
She pulled the bell rope.
She had not asked Bertrand, she realized, ifhefelt damaged. She suspected he did, that he always had. Something she had worked her way past had stuck with her twin. She now loved their father without reservation. Bertrand loved him,but...
Well, there did seem to be abut.
***
Justin was outside walking. He had come around to the back of the house, because when he had been at the front he had felt as though he were being watched from thesitting room—with resentment and hostility. As though he had been preventing Maria from being out there herself, tending the roses. He had invited her to stroll with him, but she had refused.
She was like a block of marble, even worse than he had expected. She had been easily recognizable, though he had not seen her for twelve years. Of medium height, she was slender to the point of thinness, with blond hair that was thicker and shinier than it had been when she was a child. She had a pale, delicate complexion in a narrow oval face, with a pointed chin and large blue eyes. She was beautiful, but in the way of a marble statue more than of a living woman, and a woman of twenty at that. She ought to be vibrant with youthful energy and chafing at the bit, eager to start living again, to go out into the world to mingle with her peers and fall in love. She was free of what must have been a heavy burden of nursing her mother through a long, increasingly debilitating illness until her eventual death. She was at the end of her year of mourning.
He had not seen one spark of vitality in her since his arrival. He did not know if it wasjustbecause he was here. If she had been surprised to see him two days ago, she had not shown it beyond a certain stillness when the housekeeper had announced him and he had stridden into the sitting room perhaps with more of a masterly stride than he ought. But he had been nervous, damn it. Within moments, however, she had got to her feet, made him a deep curtsy, and greeted him with a single word.
“Brandon,” she had said.
Her companion had curtsied to him too.
“Maria?” he had said. “And Miss Vane, I assume?”
His sister had said no more. Her companion had inclined her head to indicate that yes, he had correctly identified her.
He could not even remember what he had gone on to say. Nothing much. Nothing that had warmed the atmosphere even one degree.
Silence did not seem to disconcert Maria. She seemed to feel no social obligation to initiate conversation during a lull or to pick up and enlarge upon any topic he introduced. She was the mistress of the monosyllabic answer. She displayed no curiosity about the brother she had once adored and had not seen in twelve years. She asked no questions about his journey or his reason for coming here. She had said nothing during that first meeting about instructing the servants to prepare a room for him or set a place for him at the dinner table. She had not asked how long he intended to stay.
He wondered exactly what her mother had told her about him. And what their father had told her.
He had left Captain out in the stables, in the care of the lone groom who worked there. His dog had not been happy about it, but he knew how to take orders—and how to express his displeasure over ones of which he disapproved. Drooping ears and jowls, and eyes he could make look as though they too drooped at the outer corners. An ambling gait as he walked slowly on his large paws, head down, looking like an octogenarian. None of it had caused Justin to relent.
For what had remained of the day of his arrival he had contented himself with behaving more or less like a guest, though he had asked to be directed to a bedchamber. It was Miss Vane who had taken charge after a glance at a silent Maria. She had shown him to the room the housekeeper informed her had been prepared for him. It was Miss Vane who told him when dinner would be served.
