Edward had great difficulty in keeping himself from smiling, and he twisted the corners of his mouth down.
What an audacious girl she was. He couldn’t quite explain why this quality of hers should fascinate him so much. No doubt it was some pernicious state of his nature inherited from his immoral father. But in spite of her audacity, she had an innocence, even a sweetness about her, especially when she was with her friend Felicity, and her brother and sister-in-law. Edward had watched her the night before, when he’d finally been able to join the family for dinner. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Leorah Langdon.
He should have been angry with her for refusing his marriage proposal. Actually, shouldn’t he be relieved that she had refused him, leaving him free to seek Miss Augusta Norbury’s hand?
He found himself neither angry nor relieved. Rather, he felt a strange longing that he didn’t know how to explain. But the feeling would pass. In the meantime, he could stop fearing the worst—that she would in some way compromise his reputation—because the worst had already happened.
He found himself saying, “And I have a distinct desire to prove you wrong about Miss More’s writings. She is not the ‘Mistress of Rules’ that you take her for.”
“Oh?” Miss Langdon smiled now, a radiant glow about her as the morning sun lit her face, drawing out the color in her eyes. She looked most becoming in that shade of pale yellow as it contrasted with the warmth in her brown hair. A tug inside his chest felt as if it were a warning, but he couldn’t seem to look away. And he couldn’t walk away, confined as he was to his chair.
“You think you can change my mind? I am skeptical.”
He couldn’t remember what they had been speaking of. Oh yes, of Hannah More’s writings—and of rules.
He found himself taking a deep breath and sighing. What had he done? After resigning himself to the prospect of marrying her, he had stirred up some strange sensations in himself. Dangerous. But she would not have him—which was a very fortunate thing for him, he was sure—and it was good that Miss Norbury was to arrive soon.
“But you did not come to the library to debate with me about Hannah More’s books. You came to find your novel. What was the title again?”
“Sense and Sensibility. It’s written by a new writer, anonymously, but I am certain she is a woman of gentility. I wish you would read it, for I believe you would enjoy it.”
He studied her open and honest expression. She was behaving in a most friendly way, though not flirtatiously. He had quite possibly been wrong about her when he thought her reckless and unbecoming in her independence and forwardness. Perhaps he had mistaken high spirits for recklessness. The former could be used for good, while the latter was simply imprudent.
“We won’t find it unless we search for it.” He tried to turn the chair toward another bookshelf, as the doctor had shown him, but it was harder than it looked.
“Allow me.” Miss Langdon walked behind him and turned the chair around. She pushed him closer to the bookshelves at the back of the room. “Is this good?”
“That is very good, thank you.” How humbling to be so helpless.
“I shall look over here.” She skimmed across the room to another wall of shelves and began searching the spines.
He began searching as well, while his mind was full of Miss Langdon.
Had he gone daft while lying in bed for a week? Certainly this wasn’t his usual reaction to a pretty, young woman. And she was so unsuitable, he shouldn’t think of her at all. The wife of a viscount and Member of Parliament should have a serious temperament, a mind uncluttered by frivolous things such as novels, and be devoted to working for the good of her husband’s career and of society. That was the sort of wife he needed, the sort of wife he intended to have.
Why was he trying to talk himself out of Miss Langdon for a wife? She’d already rejected him. He was safe. She didn’t want him.
“I found it!”
He looked over his shoulder. She was holding the book up and smiling her triumph. “I knew it had to be here somewhere.”
“Well done.”
She clutched the book in her hands, then seemed to study him harder. “Lord Withinghall! I do believe you are smiling.” She said the words with as much wonder as she might have said, “I do believe you’ve grown a third eye.”
There again was that appealing audacity of hers. His heart did an odd sort of leap in his chest.
This was nonsense. He was behaving like a schoolboy, and he hadn’t behaved like a schoolboy even when he was one. He did his best to frown severely at her.
“No, no, it’s gone again. Perhaps I imagined it.”
Impertinence.
She laughed, a startling but delightful sound, like bubbles bursting in sunlight.
Egads. He was becoming something he’d never been fond of—a poet.
“Don’t be cross with me, my lord.” She seemed to make an effort to stop laughing. “Forgive me. You are so very dignified, it’s only that . . .” She stopped and shook her head, still smiling, and walked toward him, holding out the book. “Won’t you please humor me and read this novel? Read Sense and Sensibility?”
“You were searching for it so that your friends might read it. I am sure they will enjoy it far more than I would.”
“Nonsense. They can read it later, after you. Besides, we have other activities to keep us occupied, and you are confined to the house. You must read it first and tell us what you think of it.”
Would she truly want to know what he thought of it? Again she had stepped in front of the window, with the full light of the morning sun on her face. Her eyes were intent on his as she took another step closer, holding the book out to him.
“Very well.” He reached out and took it, careful not to let his fingers touch hers. “But I warn you that I shall be brutally honest in my assessment of it.”
She smiled wider, amusement in her eyes. “I shall expect no less.”
Edward sat in the drawing room with the rest of the household the next day. Rain fell against the windows as a storm kept them all indoors. The ladies were sitting quietly, doing some sort of needlework. Even Leorah was engaged in a similar domestic activity.
Edward had been reading for the last hour while the rest of the family and Miss Langdon’s two guests talked quietly. It was the picture of tranquility, but Edward, his legs stretched before him on the couch and covered with a blanket like an elderly invalid, was anything but tranquil.
He could contain himself no longer. “Willoughby is a cad of the first order.”
Leorah looked up from the work in her lap. “Pardon me?”
“Willoughby. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility.”
Understanding dawned on her face.