“Now I am. No dalliances that come with husbands who will want to kill you.”
“Then the pickings are slim here. I see only one widow and I’ve already burned that bridge.”
She saw whom he’d just nodded at, Priscilla Highley, looking exceptionally beautiful tonight in her emerald ball gown. So he hadn’t dallied with Priscilla that day she’d come to visit? Brooke wished she’d known that before she let her anger get her lost and drenched that day. Then again, if she’d known, she wouldn’t have found Storm....
“I miss our animals,” she said suddenly.
“Do you?”
“And I worry that Storm is going to think I abandoned her and return to the wilds.”
“Then we’ll find her again.”
What a nice thing for him to say! It didn’t quite end her bristling, but almost.
“Are we going to stay in London after your mother is fully recovered?”
“No.”
Brooke decided to be a little fanciful. “D’you think we would have met here, this very night, if none of this had happened and I’d come for my promised Season?”
“Probably not.”
“But if we did both attend, would you have sought me out?”
“A virginal debutante? My name isn’t Robert.”
She tsked. “Just imagine it for a moment and tell me you wouldn’t have at least asked me for one dance.”
“The line would have been too long.”
She laughed. “Then I guess destiny has nothing to do with us after all, and if that’s so, something will probably prevent us from marrying on Sunday.”
“Maybe one dance.”
Her eyes flared. That was quite a concession, allowing that it was destiny that had brought them together—one way or another, that they were “meant to be.”
But he spoiled the thought by adding, “But destiny isn’t always good. In our case, it could be we are destined to hate each other to the grave.”
She rolled her eyes. “Such a pessimist you are.”
“How can I not be when you are dooming this marriage from the start?”
“How can you say that when I have been nothing but accommodating?”
“Of course you are, even pointing out which bed I should sleep in. Shall I invite my mistress to the ceremony?”
That got a blush out of her and stirred the bristles again. “If you do, I’ll invite my mother and we can all glare at each other.”
He smiled. “Then perhaps you want to be both?”
She almost asked both what. But she knew. “Wifeandmistress? I think you’re missing the point.”
“No. Maybe if you act like a mistress instead of a stiff dutiful wife, I will be able to tolerate you.”
“You already tolerate me,” she gritted.
“Do I? What makes you think so?”
