“Will anyone mind if I remain here until you come back?” Winifred asked. “It is so lovely. Who would willingly exchange the scent of roses for the smell of horses?”
“And you must admit you are afraid of horses, Winnie,” Sarah said, and laughed.
Owen laughed too. “By all means stay here, then,” he said. “We will not be very long.”
Nicholas hesitated, but good manners prevailed. “I will remain with Miss Cunningham,” he said. “I spend a great deal of my life with horses. How often do I have the chance to commune with roses?”
Owen chuckled as he offered his arm to Sarah. “Thank you, Nick,” he said.
But what had he done, Nicholas wondered. Miss Cunningham did not look any happier about his decision than he felt. Perhaps she had been looking forward to some quiet time, savoring the sight and smell of the roses and watching the rainbow of colored light dancing in the waters of the fountain. There seemed to be precious little alone time in her life. Actually, if he had been thinking clearly, he would have offered to take young Sarah to the stables while Owen stayed with her sister. But muddleheaded gallantry had won the day. In his world, it was not done for two men to wander off with one lady while another was left to her own devices.
He sat down.
He just wished she was not so dashed uncomfortable with him. She made him uncomfortable in his turn, a feeling that was totally foreign to his nature. With other people, including otherwomen, he never had to search his mind for something to talk about.
—
This was what she got for sulking, Winifred thought. But really…First her hope of spending a whole morning exploring the house with only Owen as a guide and companion had been thwarted. Then, just when it seemed it was going to happen anyway, a whole cavalcade of other people had joined them without so much as a by-your-leave. Well, three other people. Not that she had minded dreadfully about two of them. Sarah did not want to be classified with the children. That was understandable. And Andrew was feeling insecure. He did not like what was unfamiliar. But Colonel Ware? Really? Was he sulking because Miss Haviland had gone off with her parents to visit Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys when he had expected to spend the morning with her? But must he spoilhermorning as a result?
And now, when Owen had suggested going to see the horsesand had asked if anyone else wanted to go, Sarah had shown not one ounce of sensitivity or tact but had jumped to her feet, all eagerness to join him. Winifred had ignored for the moment the fact that she really did not like horses. Or rather that she was afraid of them except when they were safely harnessed to a carriage. She had actually preferred to remain behind to nurse her grievances.
Served her right.
She frantically searched her mind for a topic of conversation. It would be tedious to rhapsodize again over the beauty of the courtyard or the splendor of the ballroom and portrait gallery. It was just what a lady guest could be expected to do—fill the silence with empty noise, that was. She refused to do it. She could try explaining to him that though she was against warfare in theory, she understood that that attitude did not solve all problems. But then he would look at her with that same condescending amusement with which he had regarded her at the ball. She could ask him about the village or about his mother’s husband, whom she had not yet met. But that topic would suggest a gossip’s intrusive curiosity. She could ask him about the summer fete, which was to take place while she was still here with her family. Or she could ask about…
Why did she never have this problem with Owen? With him, she just opened her mouth and started talking. And they always had interesting, intelligent discussions on a vast array of topics.
She did not have the problem with anyone else either, for that matter. Just him.
“I make you uncomfortable,” Colonel Nicholas Ware said. “Is it because I am a military man?”
No, it is because you are gorgeous.
The very thought that she might have said the words aloud made her clench her hands together in her lap.
And impossibly attractive.
“I am not uncomfortable,” she said. “How long have you been a military man?”
“Since I was eighteen,” he said. “I am thirty-four now.”
Thirteen years older than she. She had no business finding him attractive. But…did one always feel intensely self-conscious in the company of an unusually attractive man? She did not feel this way with Owen, though, and he was both good-looking and charming—and only seven years her senior, assuming he was the same age as Bertrand. For that matter, she did not feel this way about Bertrand himself, though no one could be more handsome and personable than he.
“I was the son brought up to be a cavalry officer,” he said. “Just as Devlin was raised to be the earl and Owen to be a clergyman. Our father had very conventional ideas about the roles his sons would play in the world, according to the order of their birth. My sisters, of course, were raised for matrimony and motherhood.”
“Of course,” Winifred said. She was not sure she had kept the sarcasm out of her voice. Clearly she had not. He laughed.
“However,” he said, “they were free to choose their own husbands. Steph, at the age of twenty-five, has still not chosen. She sees herself as ugly and unmarriageable with any but the most desperate men—widowers with six young children, for example. It has happened. She does not seefatas also beautiful. And she does use that word of herself.”
Winifred would not even think of describing her asfat. What a merciless word that was.
“I received one marriage offer the day after Aunt Anna’s ball,” she said. “It came from a young man who had attended the ball, though I did not dance with him or even remember him passingalong the receiving line. Perhaps he arrived after the dancing had begun. He is a clergyman in a village parish, whose bishop advised him to acquire a helpmeet in the form of a bride to take on all the duties associated more with a woman than a man—heading ladies’ committees, for example, visiting the local gentry, and delivering baskets of food to the poor and infirm. Oh, and gazing up at him with devotion from the front pew of the church as he delivers his Sunday sermon from the pulpit. I was to raise the perfect family for him—apiousfamily, that is. He seemed surprised and somewhat offended when I declined his offer.”
“That was poor sportsmanship on your part,” he said. “I assume he proceeded with perfect correctness and spoke with your father first.”
“Well, he did,” she said. “But I do not blame Papa for allowing him to make his offer directly to me. He respects all his daughters well enough to allow us to make our own decisions.”
“I applaud you for deciding as you did,” he said, grinning at her suddenly while she felt her stomach turn over inside her.
