He angled his head first one way and then the other. “I would not have guessed you were shy,” he countered.
“It’s why I never had a come-out. Well, besides the fact that I was in mourning when I was eighteen and then again when I was nineteen. Uncle offered to arrange a sponsor when I was twenty, but... I couldn’t abide the thought of spending hours standing next to potted palms waiting for someone to ask me to dance,” she explained.
“I admit I have been one of those gentlemen seeking refuge in the card room as a means of avoiding the dancing,” David said. “So I suppose that explains why we’ve never met before today.” He took one of her hands in his his. “Despite your shyness, why do you suppose you spoke to me first?”
“You weren’t the old fart I was expecting, remember?” she teased. “Yet you didn’t pause even one second to answer when I asked you if you were my betrothed.”
He grinned as he nodded. “You... you emboldened me at that moment,” he said. “You still had that effect on me when I was in the viscount’s company a few minutes later. On the way to the card parlor, I admitted I was betrothed knowing he would react in shock, and he did,” David claimed as he grinned at the memory. “I don’t recall feeling so satisfied in all my life as I did at that moment he landed on his bum in the middle of a step and tore his breeches.”
Marian gasped as a hand covered her mouth, her mirth evident in her eyes. “I felt the same way when I saw Uncle’s expression the moment you kissed me on the cheek,” she said as a brilliant smile lit her face. “He was so shocked.” She slowly sobered as her gaze went to her mind’s eye. “You don’t really wish to live in town for the next two years,” she murmured.
David hummed as he regarded her with an expression filled with mischief. “Oh, I won’t mind if you’re with me,” he replied. “However, I think I might have an idea of how we can get ’round that particular requirement.”
Marian’s eyes rounded. “Oh? Do tell,” she said, her good humor returning.
He held up a finger. “First, let’s have you take a look at the place. Meet my mother. You might decide you like it enough that you’ll wish to live there,” he said.
“And ifyoudon’t wish to live there?” she prompted.
Dipping his head, David said, “Well, I intend to take you on a wedding trip, of course.” He delighted in hearing her inhalation of surprise. “There’s no reason why it can’t be a two-year trip. To my country house in Kent... or somewhere else,” he added mischievously.
“You are a genius,” she whispered happily.
An unfamiliar sensation ofsomethingfilled his chest at hearing her comment. It wasn’t pride, exactly. Or even satisfaction. But it did convince him he was making the right decision with regard to marrying Miss Marian Copper. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said softly.
She squeezed his hand. “Well, that’s a relief,” she countered playfully. “I shouldn’t wish to marry a man who wasn’t falling in love with me.”
The coach stopped, and from the jerk at the front, David knew Carver had stepped down from the bench. He glanced out the window, prepared to see Westminster at its winter worst.
Instead, he was pleasantly surprised.
The incessant rains seemed to have washed clean the rows of townhouses in his neighborhood. The pavement, still wet from the earlier rain, reflected the ray of sunshine that had split the clouds and was doing its best to warm the air.
“We’re here,” he said when he spotted the four-story Engleston townhouse beyond the window.
A wave of nervousness had him wishing they had simply returned to the Soho Club, but David was determined his betrothed see what she would be living in when she married him.
If she married him.
