“Have you kissed her like you kiss me?”
Weston’s countenance went absolutely blank, like a page that the printing press had accidentally skipped over. “That is none of your concern.”
“Then you haven’t.” That gave hersomereason to hope. “Have you kissed her at all?”
“I believe this conversation has reached its conclusion. The stick, Miss Thorncroft.” His gray eyes glittered with annoyance. “Now.”
Evie ignored him. A benefit of being the one on the shoreline.
“When all is said and done, don’t you want your marriage to have been more than just satisfactory?” she asked quietly. “I do. I used to think such things were trivial. Love and lust and romance. That tingling sensation you get at the top of your spine when you meet the gaze of someone you desire. The breathless anticipation of that first kiss. The contentment to be found at sitting beside them for supper and sharing the events of your day. But in fact, it is those things, thosemoments, that are the most important of all, I think. Even more so because you cannot place a price upon them.” A sad, poignant smile slipped across her lips. “All the titles and all the money in the world cannot purchase love, Lord Hawkridge. It is the one entity that cannot be bought or sold or traded. I wish I had understood that sooner. But I do now, and I know what I want because of it. Do you, my lord? Doyouknow what you want?”
As she met his angry gaze, Evie silently implored him to take that step off the ledge she knew he was capable of, if only because she’d taken it. And if she, the most cynical of all her sisters when it came to love, had permitted herself to fall…then surely Weston could, as well.
For a fraction of a second, there was a flicker in those steely gray eyes of his.
A softening.
Ayearning.
But before that flicker had the opportunity to grow into a flame, his expression shuttered and all of his emotions were abruptly concealed behind a towering wall of ice that she feared herself incapable of penetrating even with the sharpest of chisels.
“What Iwantis get out of this bloody mud and to not be pestered with such ridiculous questions. This right here,” he muttered, more to himself than to her, even though her ears were perfectly capable of hearing him. “This is exactly why I am going to marry Lady Martha Smethwick.”
Evie stared at him. She’d poured out her heart. She’d emptied her verysoul. Which wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do for someone who equated being in love with breaking out in hives. And this–this–was his response?
Her limbs felt as if they were formed from wood as she stood and gathered Posy in her arms. “If you’d like to free yourself,” she said coldly, “might I suggest calling upon your satisfactory fiancée for assistance.”
“Where are you going?” he demanded when she began to walk away from the pond. “Miss Thorncroft? You cannotleaveme here. Miss Thorncroft! God damnit. Don’t you dare–”
Closing her ears to Weston’s shouts, Evie sailed off towards the manor without looking back.
Chapter Fifteen
The door squeakedon its hinges as Rosemary hesitantly opened the wooden panel a few scant inches and peeked inside. She had waited for her cousin in the solarium for nearly twenty minutes, but it appeared they’d gotten the timing wrong, or else she was terribly early, for she’d been the only person there with the exception of the servants.
Ordinarily, she would have been content to remain in the company of the staff. She’d even brought a book with her, just in case. But all of the silver platters on the long banquet table were covered, and she was starving, and with no sign of the breakfast beginning anytime soon, she had marched off in search of food.
The manor was so vast that she hadn’t the foggiest idea of which hallway led where, and not wanting to stray far from the solarium, she’d gone straight across the foyer to what she assumed to be a parlor. There was a low buzz of voices emanating from somewhere else but, as a general rule, Rosemary preferred not to socialize on an empty stomach. Truth be told, she preferred not to socialize atall, but the idea of trying to maintain a conversation while dreaming about blueberry cobbler was particularly abhorrent.
“Hello?” she said hesitantly. When there was no reply, she opened the door a bit wider and her empty belly rumbled with delight when she saw the array of pastries, coffee, and tea beckoning to her from across the room.
She’d nearly reached the table of sweets and was eyeing a plate of golden crumpets drizzled with raspberry jam when an unexpected masculine voice nearly had her leaping out of her borrowed dress.
“Oh my Sir Reginald!” she gasped, swirling around just in time to see a head pop up from the other side of a sofa. And not justanyhead. Oh, no. This head, with its tousled black hair sticking in every direction and pale, bloodshot eyes, belonged to none other than the Duke of Hanover.
Rosemary had never actuallymetthe duke. Their social circles were such a distance apart they might as well have been on different planets. But she knew who he was. Everyone did. Because…well, because he was a duke. Ahandsomeduke. A handsome duke who was not married, which had made him the target of every eligible miss in all of England and its surrounding countries. With Rosemary being the notable exception.
Not that she hadn’t admired His Grace from afar. Just because she was a wallflower didn’t mean she was blind. But while her nose was often in a book and her mind in the clouds, she had enough common sense to know that she had a better chance of tossing a knotted line of bedsheets into the night sky and catching a falling star than she did of catching the attention of the infamous Duke of Hanover.
“Could you be a love,” he croaked, his voice rough as gravel, “and bring me a cup of coffee?”
Rosemary looked to her left, then to her right. “Are you…are you talking tome?”
Squinting, he sat up a little straighter and cast his arm across the back of the sofa. “Is there someone else here?”
Her eyes as wide as the crumpets she’d been on the brink of devouring, she slowly shook her head.
“Aye, then I’m talking to you. Coffee. Please.” He blinked soulfully at her. “I’m begging you.”
