“And if you were hoping for flowers, or”—he cleared his throat—“I suppose poetry is also done, I’m afraid I...”
“Oh, dear heavens, no.” She brought her hand down on the table with an emphatic smack and was startlingly firm. “Imagineyoubearing a bouquet of flowers!”
He frowned.
“I mean”—she leaned forward earnestly—“they’re meaningless, aren’t they? Flowers, poetry? So much ritual nonsense.” She gave her fingers a flick, as if releasing something she’d crumbled into dust.
He blinked.
He rather agreed—he’d learned that the hard way, long ago—but hearing her say that out loud was strangely less pleasant than he’d thought it would be.
“They do serve to signal intent,” he said cautiously. “They give poor hapless bast—er, men—a sort of language. Because communicating the finer feelings is often a struggle for our gender.”
“Signaling intent?” she repeated. Amused and bemused, all at once. “I suppose they do serve as offerings. Of a sort. That is, all manner of things certainly preceded my wedding to Derring. Bouquets of hothouse flowers. So expensive to grow and maintain for such fleeting beauty. They say more about money, don’t they? They say, look at all my money! Little books of poems, Byron and the like, though I was certain Derring had never so much as entertained a metaphor in his life. They were flattering, and I was grateful, and at no point was his intent, as you say, ambiguous. A man as conventional as Derring doesn’t lightly publicly woo the daughter of a lord, no matter how minor. But they don’t signifyaffection, do they? Not really. They do not make a person feelknown.”
He listened to this, absolutely fascinated by something he’d failed before to consider and by a deeper glimpse intoher.
“Perhaps they don’t always.”
“Forgive me. I am trying, I suppose, to be truthful in all things. To say the things I wish to say and ask the things I wish to ask, and not try merely to please someone else.”
Once again, he knew a swift stab of loathing for Derring, who had clearly not known, or cared, who she was.
“Do you like flowers?” he asked a moment later.
“I love flowers,” she said wistfully. “Daisies, especially.”
“Daisies?”
“They grow where they want to, don’t they? Often in surprising little places. Seldom in a hothouse. They’re not confined, bought, and sold like more exotic blooms. I’ve always liked daisies best.”
She made it sound as though she might never see another daisy again.
Why did he have an impulse to shower her in them suddenly?
“On that point, it’s not what I want. I do not intend to ever marry again.” She gave a little illustrative shudder. “I am now my own womanentirelyand it suits me.”
“Excellent, Lady Derring. We are agreed on that point of courtship and matrimony. If you would be so kind as to help me understand your question?”
She drew in a breath, fortifying her nerve.
“Do you ‘want’ every pretty woman you see?”
He stared at her, once again astounded and nonplussed.
And then his head went back a little in comprehension.
Then a tiny flame of fury flared inside him at the people who had treated this uniquely lovely woman as someone who was merely a sort of bargaining chip or an ornament or as a means of continuing a line. This singularperson.
If she were any other woman in any other circumstance he might say,I’ve never wanted anyone like this! I must have you!or something equally impassioned and florid in a low sultry voice. He was reasonably confident he could weaken the knees of a nun if he ever wanted to do that—he had, in fact, done that, once, an aspiring nun, rather—and have her knickers off and legs in the air with alacrity.
He wasn’t certain this was true, however. The never wanting someone quite so much.
He’d certainly known lust, some of it fierce.
Hewascertain he’d never met a woman like Lady Derring.
Somehow he knew this had something to do with the wanting of her.
