Something flickered across Adrian’s face—gone too swiftly to name. “Lady Catherine. She’s abroad at present. Italy, last I heard.”
“How lovely. And your parents?”
“Dead.” The word was flat, final.
An awkward silence fell. Marianne found herself speaking before she could think better of it. “Is that when you went to India?”
His eyes shifted to her, a flicker of surprise breaking his composure. “You have been making enquiries about me?”
“Only fair, is it not? You took the trouble to make yours about us.”
“I see. And what else did you uncover in your… investigations?”
She felt the weight of her parents’ attention but pressed on. “That you spent five years in the East. That you returned with a fortune no one can quite explain, and scars no onedares ask about. That you’ve had three mistresses but no official courtships. That you fence at Angelo’s on Tuesdays and keep a box at the opera you rarely use.”
“Marianne!” Her mother’s horrified whisper did nothing to stop her.
“It’s all right,” Adrian said, his gaze steady on Marianne. “I admire thoroughness. Though you missed a few details.”
“Oh?”
“I also breed horses at my estate in Kent. I speak four languages fluently. And I’ve been thinking of you every moment since the opera.”
The last was spoken so softly she almost missed it. Her father did not.
“Right,” Edmund said, setting down his spoon with a decisive clink. “Cards on the table, Harrowmere. What are your intentions toward my daughter?”
“Edmund, for goodness’ sake—”
“No, Margaret, this needs saying.” He leaned forward. “My daughter is not some pampered miss who’ll swoon at plain speaking. She has a spine of steel and a mind sharp enough to run my entire operation if society would let her. So, I’ll ask again: what is it you want with her?”
Adrian was silent for a long moment, his fingers turning the stem of his glass. When he looked up, his eyes went directly to Marianne.
“I want,” he said slowly, “what I haven’t wanted in a very long time—something real in a world of façades. Someone who looks at me without flinching, who gives as good as she gets, who makes me feel…” He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. “Alive.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Marianne couldn’t breathe; she could only stare as her heart hammered painfully against her ribs.
“Well,” her father said at last, “that’s either the prettiest speech I’ve ever heard or the most honest. I can’t quite tell which.”
“Both, perhaps,” Adrian replied, his gaze still locked with Marianne’s.
Her father leaned back. “Then the question is what you intend to do about it. Because if you mean to trifle with her—”
Adrian’s head snapped toward him, eyes flashing. “I would never dishonour her so.”
“Wouldn’t you? A duke and a merchant’s daughter—it’s not exactly a likely match.”
“Edmund, enough,” her mother said sharply. “You’re being deliberately provocative.”
“I’m being protective. There’s a difference.” But he subsided, apparently satisfied with whatever he’d read in Adrian’s face.
The second course arrived—roasted fowl with all the accompaniments. Conversation turned to safer topics: the theatre season, the new railway lines being built, the price of silk from China. But underneath the polite discourse, tension thrummed like a plucked string.
Adrian’s knee brushed Marianne’s beneath the table. She couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or accidental, but she didn’t move away. The contact was minimal, barely there, but it made every nerve in her body sing with awareness.
“More wine, Your Grace?” She reached for the bottle at the same moment he did; their fingers tangled briefly before he took it. “Allow me,” he murmured, refilling her glass. His thumb lingered, tracing the back of her hand in the smallest, most deliberate caress.
Her father noticed everything. “Marianne,” he said mildly, “perhaps you might show His Grace the conservatory after dinner. We’ve had some new specimens sent from the colonies.”
