“If he calls me out, the choice of weapons will be mine. Details can be arranged so that neither of us ends up pushing up daisies.”
Goldie tried to imagine her father in a duel—on her behalf.
And she couldn’t see it. “He won’t call you out, so you shouldn’t worry about it. Now, if you were marrying Nia instead of me, then he would demand satisfaction.” She sent him a rueful smile. “But you did not ask Nia to marry you. You asked me.”
“I asked you.” His gaze warmed her. “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” he admitted. “Did something happen?”
Embarrassment warmed her cheeks. She’d been so certain her reasoning had been sound. “My father decided to send me to join Nia and my mother.” And then she added, “Today.”
“No debut?”
She shook her head. “I won’t change my mind again. I’m not fickle.”
“You have every right to change your mind as many times as you’d like. This is your future, after all. And in this instance, I’ll admit to being glad of it.”
His gentle tones and kind understanding flustered her. “T-thank you,” she managed.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
She would not mention that she’d lost the contents of her stomach just ten minutes before he arrived. Besides, now that he was here, sitting in front of her…
“A little,” she admitted. Suddenly she wanted to be in his arms again. She wanted him to kiss her again.
He glanced at the fob watch hanging from his coat and then rose and offered his hand. “Come here,” he said.
This.
This was why she would marry him. Deep down, she sensed a special understanding between the two of them. She had little reason to trust it, but it was enough.
She took his hand and allowed him to pull her up to stand.
Rather than take her into his arms as she’d wanted, however, he spun her around so her back faced his front.
He placed both his hands on her shoulders and began rubbing the chords of her muscles.
“Oh,” she sighed as the tension she hadn’t even realized was there began easing away.
“My sisters can be quite… exuberant. But they mean well,” he said. “I hope they didn’t wear you out.”
“Quite the opposite.” Goldie relaxed into him. “I like them.” Had she said that already?
He chuckled as his fingertips moved up her neck, smoothing over her skin and sliding into her hair.
“I’m glad.”
Goldie waited a moment and then asked, “Are you nervous?”
“I’m relieved.” Did his voice catch?
His answer was an odd one, but then, nothing about their arrangement was normal, was it? He’d kissed her. He’d told her he wanted her.
He’d touched her intimately.
But the marriage was to serve a greater purpose. Naïve though she was, she realized that for him to marry just over a month after the deaths in his family would be great fodder for gossip.
And he would protect her as much as possible—from the gossip, but also from her father.
She was putting a tremendous amount of trust in him.
