“She sounds delightful.”
She ignored his wry tone. “—and she will need a man who treats her very very well. Who has a great deal of money and does not mind spending it to spoil her.”
“That sounds like the very opposite of what Olivia needs.”
“It’s not. You’ll see.”
Silence fell, and she did not mind, instead turning into his warmth, loving the way he felt against her, the heat of him making the carriage infinitely more comfortable. Just as the rocking motion of the coach was about to lull her to sleep, he spoke. “And you?”
Her eyes flew open. “Me?”
“Yes. You. What kind of man would suit you?”
She watched the way the blanket rose and fell against his chest as he breathed, the long, even movements calming her in a strange way.
I would like for you to suit me.
He was her husband, after all. It was only natural for her to imagine that he might be more than a fleeting companion. More than an acquaintance. More of a friend. More than the cold, hard man she’d come to expect him to be. She did not mind this Michael, the one next to her, warming her, talking to her.
Of course, she did not say any of those things. Instead, she said, “It doesn’t matter much anymore, does it?”
“If it did?” He was not going to let her avoid the question.
Whether because of the warmth or the quiet or the journey or the man, she answered. “I suppose I should like someone interesting—someone kind—someone who is willing to show me . . .”
How to live.
She couldn’t say that. He would laugh her out of the carriage. “Someone to dance with—someone to laugh with—someone to care about.”
Someone who would care about me.
“Someone like your fiancé?”
She thought of Tommy, considered for a fleeting moment telling Michael that the unidentified man to whom he referred was the friend they’d known all their lives. The son of the man who took everything from him. But she didn’t want to upset him, not while they were quiet and warm, and she could pretend they enjoyed each other’s company.
So instead she whispered, “I should like for it to be someone like my husband.”
He was silent for a long time, long enough for her to wonder if he’d heard her. When she risked peering up at him through her lashes, she found that he was staring at her with an unsettling intent, his hazel eyes nearly golden in the fading light.
For one, fleeting moment, she thought he might kiss her.
She wished he would kiss her.
A flush spread high on her cheeks at the thought, and she turned away quickly, returning her head to his chest, closing her eyes tightly, and willing the moment gone—along with her silliness.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they did suit.
Chapter Eight
Dear M—
Just a quick note today to tell you that we are all thinking of you, me most of all. I asked my father if we could come to Eton for a visit, and of course he told me that it wouldn’t be appropriate, as we are not family. It’s silly, really. You’ve always felt as much like family as some of my sisters. Definitely more like family than my Aunt Hester.
Tommy will be home for his summer holiday. I am crossing my fingers that you will join us.
Ever—P
Needham Manor, May 1816
No reply
On the evening of his wedding, Bourne exited his town house almost immediately after depositing his new wife inside and headed for The Fallen Angel.
He would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel like something of an ass in leaving her so summarily, in a new home with a new staff and nothing familiar, but he had a single, immovable goal, and the faster he reached it, the better they all would be.
He would send the announcement of their marriage to the Times, get the young ladies Marbury matched, and have his revenge.
He did not have time for his new wife.
He certainly did not have time for her quiet smiles and her quick tongue and the way she reminded him of everything that he had lost. Of everything on which he’d turned his back.
There was no room in his life for them to talk. No room to be interested in what she had to say. No room to find her entertaining or to care even a bit about how she felt about her sisters or how she had coped with her broken engagement, now years behind her.
And there was definitely no room for him to wish to murder the man who had broken that engagement and made her doubt herself and her worth.
It did not matter that she put flowers on his parents’ graves at Christmas.
Maintaining a distance from her was essential—it was distance that would establish the parameters of their marriage, namely, that he would retain his life, and she would build her own, and while they would see her sisters matched together, it was for their individual reasons.