Alice lifted her chin. “I doubt I shall ever look at anyone making a wage in the same manner as I did before.”
They had strayed far from the original topic.
“Please, my lady, resume your seat.”
After a moment, she did, and so did he. Adam, as his sisters would tell her, was a persistent chap. Thus, after another silent moment, he tried again.
“Lady Alice, will you marry me?”
She said nothing, only staring at him as if he’d grown a second nose. While she considered his proposal, he ate the porridge and set the bowl beside him so he could drink the now-cold tea.
Finally, knowing she was still looking at his profile, he said, “I doubt a man has ever waited so patiently.”
“I doubt a woman was more caught off guard than I,” she said.
“Then you haven’t been paying close attention,” he told her.What were the correct words to make her understand?
“When I still thought you were a governess, I confessed my ardent admiration and asked for your hand. You gave me platitudes about your station and mine, all the while knowing our stations in life were the same. And after yesterday, we know we fit perfectly.”
He stopped looking at the tree line in the distance and turned to see her blushing. A widow who blushed when a man referred to tupping. He liked that about her. He liked everything about her.
The question was,Did she feel the same?
After another long silence, she muttered, “We hardly know one another.”
Relief trickled through him. It wasn’t a definite answer, neither accepting his offer, nor closing the door entirely upon a union. Instead, it was a sensible statement, albeit inaccurate.
“That is not true,” he disagreed. “We have spent many hours together in Bath. But if you want to know more, then ask me a question, and I shall ask you one in return.”
For a moment, he thought she might not play the game, but she nodded.
“How is it your sisters all have such strange names, and you escaped that fate?”
Unexpected, but a fair question.
“I did not escape. My full name is Adamas, which in Latin means —”
“Diamond,” she filled in. “Thus, you are Lord Diamond Diamond. Your parents are an amusing pair.”
“Aren’t they, though? At least I escaped my mother’s second choice, Adamare. Do you also know what that means?”
By the way her cheeks reddened again, he would guess she did. Leaning closer, he kissed her, loving the way she turned to him and kissed him back. They were already a couple as far as he was concerned.
“It’s my turn,” he said when he finally drew back.
“For what?” she asked breathlessly, starting to lean against him.
“To ask you a question.”
Straightening immediately, she had the look of a skittish doe. “If you must.”
“How did you really meet your husband?”
“Completely irrelevant,” she snapped.
“I am merely trying to learn more about you. It wasn’t a public, middle-class dance in London.”
Alice twisted her lips, making him want to kiss her again. But then she relented.
