“Would you, indeed?”
Absolutely not. “She’s so managing, she might have managed you right into marriage. That seems to be what she’s aiming for. She said as much, didn’t she? And I just can’t imagine having to face Florence across the Christmas goose for the rest of my life.”
He shuddered. “Nor can I. I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude, Darling.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “It was entirely selfish on my part, I assure you.”
“But you plan to be around in twenty years, at the Christmas table, it seems.”
“If I’m not married to someone else by the time I’m thirty, I’m marrying Christopher,” I said, and had the pleasure of seeing his jaw drop. “It’ll be a marriage of convenience, of course. Christopher will continue to do what Christopher does, and I’ll live a life of leisure off the Sutherland money.”
“That’s appalling,” Crispin said. “Don’t you want children? Don’t you want a husband who loves you? Don’t you want…” He trailed off, his cheeks darkening.
I sniggered. “Of course I do, St George. But Christopher loves me, and we can adopt a child—I think Christopher would rather that than produce his own, especially with me?—”
His jaw dropped again. “But… it wouldn’t be a Sutherland!”
“It’ll be something like tenth in line for the title,” I said, “after you and whatever children you engender, and then Uncle Herbert and Francis, and whatever children Francis and his wife—probably Constance—generate. Christopher’s and my child would make it nowhere near the Sutherland title. But we can make it a girl, if you’d prefer. That way it won’t matter anyway, with the silly inheritance laws. If you’re adopting, you can choose what kind of baby you get, and I bet most people want boys. Girls are always second class citizens. So we’ll pick a girl and it’ll all work out.”
I sat back in the seat, well pleased with my plan. Next to me, Crispin opened and closed his mouth like a frog.
“You’re joking,” he said, after a minute had passed and he had found his voice. “You must be.”
“I assure you, I’m not. But it’s only if no one else wants to marry me, you know. I have seven years to find a different husband. Or six-and-a-half, at least. Plenty of time. Marrying Christopher is just the backup plan if finding a husband the usual way doesn’t work out.”
“You’re mad,” Crispin said.
“I don’t know why you would say that. It makes sense to me. We’re best friends, we live together already, we could make a happy life together as we get older. Although Christopher isn’t madly keen on the idea, of course…”
He had his heart set on being a bachelor, he’d told me, with all that that entailed. Not that he had said that last part; I was inferring it.
“No,” Crispin said, “I quite get that. I’m not madly keen, either. Why on earth are you praising me for not marrying Laetitia, if you’re planning to do this to yourself?”
“That’s entirely different,” I told him. “I’m not in love with someone else. You are. And I’m waiting until I’m thirty, and it’s only if no one else wants me. You’re twenty-three. Barely. You should wait for Uncle Harold to come to his senses and let you marry who you want.”
Or wait for him to die, which had been part of the conversation I had overheard, as well.
Uncle Harold, I mean. Not Crispin. People might die of a broken heart in fiction, but not in reality.
“And if he doesn’t?” Crispin wanted to know.
“Then I guess, eventually, you’ll have to decide whether she’s worth giving up the title for. If she is, then you go and live happily with the woman you love in some little hamlet on the Continent. I hear Italy is lovely. If she’s not, you do your duty and marry someone like Laetitia or Flossie Schlomsky and carry on the line. At least your children will be Sutherlands. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“It would be terrible,” Crispin said. “Nothing against Laetitia; we’ve certainly had some good times…” His lips curved in an unpleasantly reminiscent manner, and I fought back the desire to smack him, “but she’s just as managing as Flossie, and I’m sick and tired of being managed.”
“Aww, poor baby,” I told him. “All these women falling at your feet, and you don’t like them handling you.”
He scowled. “You’re awful, Darling. I don’t know why I attempt to be myself around you. All you do is make fun of me.”
I suppose I did. But what did he expect, when he said things like that? “You could make it a little less easy, you know.”
“I’m sure I could,” Crispin said, “but that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? So you think I should marry Laetitia after all? Or perhaps Flossie? Or…”
He trailed off, and I could see his throat move when he swallowed.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in complete sincerity this time. “I don’t know how close you were, but it must have been a shock. Especially the way Tom sprang the news on you. And after what happened with Johanna, too.”
He slanted a look my way, but not far enough to actually connect with my gaze. “I feel like Jonah. Death and destruction everywhere I go. Every woman I touch ends up dead.”
