“It must be difficult, to be so far from home,” he said, his gray eyes gently probing.
“It is,” she acknowledged. “But at the same time, it isn’t. I…I’ve come to enjoy England.” Her lips twisted in a rueful smile. “Despite all of the rain.”
“We do receive more than our fair share.”
“But your gardens are all the prettier because of it. And how are you to appreciate the sun if it is always shining?”
“How indeed?” he murmured, his gaze skimming across her wrapper before it returned with almost comical abruptness to her face. “Would your sister consider coming here to visit you? Or does she have a husband who would keep her close to home?”
“Claire is not married, but she is sweet on the butcher’s son.” Evie paused to take another sip of milk. “He gives her extra bacon slices in our meat order every week.”
“If that isn’t true love, I don’t know what is.”
“And yet, you don’t believe in it.”
“Believe in what?” he said guardedly, as if he already knew the answer to his own question, but wanted to give her the opportunity to ask a different one.
“True love. Or any love, for that matter.”
He was silent for a moment, his shuttered stare impossible to decipher. When he did speak, it was with all the wariness of a solider trying to avoid underground explosives on the field of battle. “It isn’t that I don’t believe in love. I understand that it exists. I’ve seen it, in all its varied forms. I love my sister. I love my horses. I love this estate.”
He’d omitted his father, Evie noted.
And her, but then he had already said as much when she had given him her heart and he’d offered to find her a husband.
Rather like handing a baker money for a decadent chocolate cake and receiving a plain loaf of bread instead.
Bread wasn’t bad, per se.
But it was a far cry from chocolate cake.
“Do you love Lady Martha?” she dared to ask, and found herself holding her breath as she awaited his reply.
“I do not,” he said without hesitation. “Neither does she love me. And our marriage shall be the better for it. Love, especially love between a husband and wife, is an…unnecessary complication.” He lifted his shoulder in a negligent shrug. “I’ve no love for my valet or my butler, yet they are an intricate part of my household.”
Evie blinked. “Then you intend for your wife to be a servant.”
“Iintendfor my wife to serve a role,” he corrected. “As I will serve a role for her. Love need not muddy the waters.”
She wanted to argue with him. But how could she, when she’d recently been of the same exact opinion? For her entire adult life, with the exception of these past two weeks, she’d thought precisely as Weston did. That a marriage was not something to be romanticized, but a contract between two willing parties.
A husband would provide his wife with protection, a generous allowance, and a good name. In turn, a wife would give her husband a male heir, manage his household affairs, and be a consummate hostess. Love was an afterthought.
Oh, it was nice if it occurred.
But it certainly was not anecessity.
Or so she had believed…until she’d fallen in love herself.
And splatted face first onto the ground.
“I have been meaning to ask, why are the walls barren?” she asked in an obvious and deliberate attempt to steer the subject towards safer ground. “The manor’s architecture is stunning. The crystal chandeliers are divine. The furniture is of the highest quality. But why is everything so…white?”
“Brynne says it reminds her of a mausoleum,” he said wryly.
“I do not disagree with her.”
“When my parents lived here, my mother took it upon herself to redecorate every room down to the wall hangings. Apparently, it had not been updated for nearly half a century and the style was somewhat…garish. Or so I’ve been told. She finished right before my sister and I were born, and…” He cleared his throat, then glanced at Evie’s half-filled cup. “Do you mind if I…?”
