“Yes, he visited last year.”
“He was the one with curly red hair and a kind smile.” Jane pictured the man in her mind, or she tried to, but a certain wavy-haired, blue-eyed duke kept appearing instead.
It is like being haunted.
“Yes. And he is rather fond of hawking.” Lord Cotswalts smiled. “Something the two of you will have in common.”
My father forbade me from keeping birds.
Jane found herself remembering the hardness in Blake’s eyes as he had said it, a contrast to the softness in him whenever he looked at Athena.
Stop thinking about him, you are supposed to be finding a husband. A different husband. A husband who wants you.
“Are you sure you are well?” Lord Cotswalts’ voice brought Jane back to the present.
She realized she had re-read the list several times but had taken none of it in. She shook herself and tried to smile at her father. “I am well, Father. Just caught up in my thoughts. Marriage is rather a big decision…”
She looked back at the list in her hand. A handful of barons, several merchants, one viscount, an earl, and a marquess. She frowned at each of the names, trying to picture their faces in her mind or to recall if she had ever heard of any of them.
Some part of her felt relieved. From everything she knew, the list was a promising start. Yet, she could not quite muster up a sense of excitement or anything more than a sort of numb neutrality.
It is what I wanted. No, it is what I want.
After a while, her father said, “Has your mother ever told you how we met?”
“You were a business partner of her father’s, were you not?” Jane was still scanning the list, and she barely glanced up at him as she said it.I have heard the story at least one hundred times.“You saw her and knew that there would be no other woman for you. And she knew that only you would be her husband.”
“That is true, but it is also only a part of our story.” Her father gestured to the sofa beside him. “When I first saw your mother, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I had never met someone with a mind like hers, who seemed to see right through everyone around her. Yet, she was not from the nobility. And though I was only a minor peer, my family thought she was beneath me.” He made a face. “So, we did not see each other again for some years after we first met.”
“I did not know that.” Jane looked at her father. “But I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense.”
“The first time we saw each other again was at a masquerade ball. I did not even know that the woman I was dancing with was your mother.” Her father’s features softened at the memory, and Jane knew he could feel her mother in his arms. “I am not a particularly skilled dancer, but with her… I felt as though we were one. We did not speak a word to one another, and for propriety’s sake, I did not dance with another woman for the rest of that night.”
It made her think of dancing with Blake. They had seemed to move as one, as though they were extensions of one another. He had a fluid grace she had not expected, a firmness that made her feel safe.
Stop thinking about him.
“But…” Jane frowned. “Mother always told us to never do that!”
“Your mother prefers that you do as she says, not as she does.” Lord Cotswalts laughed. “Besides, we were young. Or younger.”
Jane scowled. The next time her mother lectured her about propriety, she was going to bring this up.
I suspect that is why she never told us.
“I had given up all hope of ever seeing her again. I had resigned myself to marrying some woman my family approved of. But as we danced, she spoke to me, and I recognized her voice.” Her father’s eyes widened. “At that moment, it was as though my entire life was unfolding before my eyes. I knew that I had a choice to make. I could choose the life I was supposed to lead, or I could choose happiness.”
“I chose happiness.” Her father smiled at her. “And I have never regretted that choice.”
Jane chewed her lip, trying to understand what her father was telling her. “But you are a man.”
“I am.” Her father nodded. “But in all that time, your mother did not choose another. I had given up on her, but she did not give up on me. Good things come to those who wait, and your mother was thirty-two when she married me. And I would say we have been a most wonderful match.”
Jane thought of Blake, of how it had felt when she kissed him. She thought of her father’s story. “I do not understand.”
“Marriage should not be rushed.” Her Father squeezed her hand. “And you, my darling, are worth waiting for.”
“That only matters if there is someone who wishes to wait for me,” Jane murmured. “And I do not know that I wish to wait for him.”
