“I want you, yes. I also admire you more than I expect to admire any other woman for a long time, if ever.”
“I thank you for that. It is nice if at least a modicum of affection is part of a marriage proposal. I realize that is not how your kind do it, however. Admiration is a worthy substitute, I suppose.” Her aimless stroll had brought her close to him. She looked at him wistfully. “I must decline.”
“You would be a duchess. I can understand your rejecting me. I am surprised you are rejecting that. Do you even know what it means?”
“I know some of it. I have seen the deference and the luxury and the standing in the world. I am told at major banquets a duchess has one of the best seats and enters before all the other peers’ wives. It is a rare privilege and status you offer me. The girl you choose next season will value it properly.”
That girl would probably also bore him to death. He had two choices at this moment. He could try to persuade her with pleasure, or lie and profess undying love.
She smiled. “I know what you are thinking. I am flattered you still debate how to win me over. But I will know if you lie, and I will not allow you to touch me. I meant that. Now, I must leave before you compromise yourself because of this whim.”
“It is not a whim.”
“Itisa whim. A sweet one. But that is exactly what it is.”
She left, then. He threw himself into a chair to accommodate that he had been rejected in a marriage proposal for the second time in his life, in the same house, by a woman who by all accounts should have fainted with delight at such good fortune.
He could be excused if he hated Scotland.
Chapter Nineteen
She walked ten steps away from the door before the fullness of their conversation exploded in her head.She had turned down the chance to be a duchess. If anyone learned of it, she would be labeled unbearably stupid and hopelessly mad.
Nonsense. The proposal had been insane, not her response. She repeated that all the way to her chamber, but she noticed every expensive appointment in the house on her path. It could all have been hers. And this was not even one of hisgoodhouses.
Oh, how rational she had sounded. How selfless. As if he would be the first man to make a foolish match due to sexual desire. Somehow—and she had absolutely no idea how—a duke had come to want her enough to actually marry her to get her, and she hadturned him down. Even she began to doubt her sanity.
Who was she to lecture him on his duty to find an appropriate wife? Or the way passion passes? On anything to do with men and women? His experience exceeded hers. Vastly, because she possessed almost no experience at all.
Of course that had not been at the heart of her reaction. She had not been thinking about his choice at all. Only her own.How will this change my rights to this land?Not her use of the land, as duchess. Her right to it. He’d known the answer, hadn’t he? He’d thought all that out. It was one of the problems the marriage would solve, along with his inexplicable desire.
She found some contentment in remembering that part of their conversation. She concentrated on it, which was far better than thinking about the priceless Chinese vase set at the end of the corridor near her chamber, almost as an afterthought, as if it were not worthy enough to be downstairs in the library or drawing room with the truly precious items.
The whole episode distracted her enough that she was in the middle of her chamber before she realized someone else was there too. Miss Ingram sat in the chair set beside the fireplace, holding a book open, high and angled to the light of a candelabra she had set on the small table she had pulled over.
“Were you confused and found yourself in the wrong chamber, Miss Ingram?”
Miss Ingram peered at her book another few moments, then closed it and set it on her lap. She turned her attention on Davina. “I do not become confused about where I am. I know people think I have gone soft in my head, even my dear nephew, but I don’t miss much, Miss MacCallum.”
“That is good to know.”
“No indeed. I don’t miss much at all.” She raised one eyebrow. “Were you just with him?”
“We had a conversation, yes.”
“A chat, was it? How nice. I assumed by now he would have engaged in more than that.”
If the woman claimed she was not dotty, Davina was not going to play childish games. “If you thought that, you have been negligent as a chaperone in leaving us alone so much.”
“I told Cornelius to send someone else if he wanted you watched like a schoolgirl. His wife was there and dared to scold me about how the duke had nefarious plans for you so I had to be alert and aware. What nonsense.” She struggled to her feet. “I wish a duke had insulted me with nefarious plans forty years ago. I would be sitting pretty now, instead of depending on Cornelius. He is generous, Miss MacCallum, but even from a nephew it is charity.”
“Miss Ingram, are you saying you have deliberately been negligent in order to allow Brentworth to seduce me?”
“You do not sound nearly shocked enough.”
“As you implied, I am not a schoolgirl.”
“It was not the seduction I did not want to interfere with, although I assume that would have to be a first step. My thinking was that he might make a proposal to you. Not a proper one. The other kind that such men make to women they cannot marry.” She began walking to the door, but paused. “Has he?”
