Hector appeared to have tired himself out. He fetched the stick and plopped down at Percy’s feet. He became instantly comatose.
“If it is any consolation to you,” she said, “my total lack of interest in you has nothing to do with you personally. Without any doubt, I have never met a more handsome man than you or one more capable of charm. If I were interested in flirtation or courtship or remarriage, I might well consider setting my cap at you, though I am fully aware that doing so would be inviting certain disappointment and heartache. Fortunately, perhaps, I am not interested. Not in you and not in any other man. Not in that way. Ever. And if it offends your manly sensibilities to hear me say it, then comfort yourself with the thought that within a week I will be back living at the dower house.”
“Total lack of interest,” he said, “yet you kissed me.”
“You took me by surprise,” she said, and the words hung between them almost as though they had some significance beyond their surface meaning.
What did her self-discipline hide? Why would she not let go of it? Mourning for eight years after a four-year marriage surely was excessive and self-absorbed. But he would not pry further. She would not tell him, and if she did, he had the feeling he really, really would not want to know.
What had happened to her when she was in captivity?
“If I wear marble as an armor,” she said, breaking the strange silence, which had made him very aware of the elemental roar of the sea and the harsh, lonely cry of seagulls, “then you wear charm, Lord Hardford. A careless sort of charm. One wonders what lies behind it.”
“Oh, nothing, I do assure you,” he told her. “Nothing whatsoever. I am pure charm through to the heart.”
Although the brim of her gray bonnet half hid her face from view, he could see that she smiled.
And it somehow made his heart ache—his very charming heart.
She turned her head to look at him. The smile was gone, but her eyes were open. Well, of course they were. She would hardly look at him with closed eyes, would she, unless she was inviting another kiss, which she decidedly was not. But they were . . . open. The only trouble was that he could not interpret what he saw inside them.
She really was quite incredibly beautiful. He clasped his hands behind his back to stop himself from touching one finger to that tantalizingly curved upper lip.
“I believe,” she said softly, “that after all you are almost likable, Lord Hardford. Let us leave it at that, shall we?”
Almost likable.
Foolishly, he felt that it might be the most precious compliment he had ever been paid.
“Am I forgiven, then?” he asked her. “For kissing you?”
“I am not sure you are that likable,” she said, turning to make her way back toward the path to the top.
She had actually made a joke, Percy thought, looking down at Hector, who had awoken from his coma and was scrambling to his feet.
“I am not going to have to carry you up, I hope,” Percy said.
Hector waved his stubby tail.
8
I believe that after all you are almost likable.
It embarrassed Imogen to recall that she had said that aloud. It puzzled her that she might have meant it, with the reservation of that almost, of course.
She would love to have seen him confront Mr. Tidmouth in his shop. It would have made a delicious anecdote with which to regale her friends at Penderris next month. She would wager he had neither blustered nor raised his voice. She wondered what he did hide behind his surface charm, if anything. He had not always been charming with her, of course. It would be a long time before she forgot his very first words to her—and who the devil might you be? He might be nothing but empty conceit. That poor dog was firmly attached to him, though, and dogs were often more discerning than people. Of course, Hector did nothing to enhance his chosen master’s manly image. Imogen found herself smiling at the thought—and she must remember to tell her friends how he had resembled that very sentimental painting of Jesus cradling a lamb in his arms and how thunderstruck he had looked when she told him so.