Gabriel was shocked. “But that’s not how it is at all.”
“It is. And when I object you tease me and play seductive games and pretend it hasn’t happened. Like now. I have serious concerns—I told you repeatedly before any of this came up that I had no intention of remarrying—and then you talk to me of ointment! And call me a pretty fly! As if my concerns are foolish female nonsense. Well, back in Zindaria men told me my fears that someone was trying to kill my son were foolish female nonsense, and they were wrong and I was right and I won’t put up with being treated like a ninny!” She stormed to the window and stood with her back to him. Her chest heaved and her spine was rigid with tension.
She was close to tears, he saw. And she was right. Gabe felt chastened and remorseful. He hadn’t meant to belittle her, just coax her into a happier frame of mind.
Had he really been such an overbearing bully? He hadn’t meant to be. He’d honestly done what he thought was right.
But he could see how it must look to her.
“It comes from years of being an officer,” he said ruefully. “One is expected to decide what is best for everyone under your command. It becomes a habit.”
He swallowed. “And the teasing, I don’t mean to demean you at all. It is simply my way. What Great-aunt Gert used to call my ‘lamentable and ill-timed tendency to levity.’ It seems to have gotten worse.” He took a deep breath and said resolutely, “But I am willing to change. I don’t know if I can,” he confessed. “But if you marry me, I promise you I’ll try.”
There was a long silence from the window embrasure. “I quite like your frivolity at times,” she said eventually. “You make me laugh, and I know I’m too serious. But I think sometimes you use frivolity to hide something deeper.” She turned and looked at him. “It’s a way of dealing with the darker side of life, isn’t it? Of showing gaiety in the face of darkness, or skimming over the surface instead of looking into the abyss.”
He swallowed, feeling like an insect on a pin. Facing an abyss. “Perhaps. Sometimes. And sometimes it’s just…I can’t help myself. I’m sorry if it annoys you.”
She gave him a searching look, then a faint smile. “Sometimes it makes me want to hit you!”
“Then hit me,” he said at once. “I have a very thick head and—” He broke off and said ruefully, “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?’
She smiled properly now. “Yes, but I don’t mind. I don’t care how frivolous you are as long as you listen. And you are listening, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” God, yes, he was listening.
She crossed the room and sat down again, smoothing her skirts and folding her hands in her lap before she began. “You’ve been honest with me, so I’ll try to explain my position,” she said. “I know I haven’t always made the wisest choices, but deciding for myself is a new experience for me—a very new and precious experience.
“All my life Papa decided everything for me—what I did, what I wore, what I learned, ate, who I met—for every hour of every day. And then, when I was just sixteen, I married Prince Rupert of Zindaria, who ordered my life even more closely and rigidly than Papa.
“And then they they both died within two months of each other, and for a full year I remained trapped in that rigidly ordered life, until my son’s life was threatened, and I didn’t know who I could trust, so I had to decide for myself what to do because there wasn’t another soul in the world I could rely on to protect me.
“So I made a decision—the first and probably the most important one of my life—not a very courageous decision, I admit, to flee, but it was my decision, and we did it—we ran.
“And every day of the next eighteen days I made decision after decision for myself and my son. And some were good and some were mistakes, but they were mine, too, and I learned from them.”
She looked at him, “There hasn’t been a lot in my life that is truly mine. But I learned something in that time: deciding for oneself can be terrifying. But it’s also exhilarating. We got here, Gabriel. I got myself and my son, alone and unaided, across Europe. And I’m proud of it.
“So don’t treat me as a foolish child. I was kept that way by my father and then my husband, but I vowed never to return to that state again. I planned never to marry, never to make vows of obedience and duty to any man.” Her voice broke.
The speech had upset her again and she rose from her chair and took an agitated few steps around the room. Gabe watched, having no idea how to convince her. The only thing he could think of to do was to grab her and kiss her and not stop until she agreed to marry him.
But something told him she might not welcome that approach just now.
She said, “I understand why my marriage to an Englishman is necessary…”
Gabe held his breath.
She chewed her lip, gave him a troubled look, and said, “Perhaps I should ask your brother to find me another candidate.”
“Another candidate?” Gabe was stunned. “What other candidate?”
She made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. Someone who won’t care what I do, who won’t try to order my life, who will let me go my own road. It doesn’t really matter, does it? Not with a marriage of convenience. Your brother might even consider it. Marriage to a princess with connections to half the royal families of Europe could be quite an asset to a rising diplomat’s career.”
“You arenotmarrying my brother!” Gabe exploded.
“Well, no, he was just a case in point,” she explained.
“You don’t need any case in point—you’ve got me!”
