“I am not in the Marriage Mart.”
“You should be.”
He let fall his papers into his lap and focused on her. “Why is that?”
“You get older.” She craned her neck to peer at the top of his head. “Do you have any gray hairs?”
“I do not!”
“Plus, you need an heir. We don’t want you so advanced in age that you cannot get one.”
“Never worry, pet. I canget one.”
“Not without a legitimate mate.”
He grumbled and picked up his papers. “Go away.”
He sensed her moving slowly toward the door. “I understand that the French lady you met in the Carlisles’ garden will attend.”
His gaze stuck on the last word he’d read. “Is that so?” He had tried for nonchalance, but doubted he’d hit the right note. “How do you know I met, as you call her, the French lady?”
“Cora Enderly saw you with her. So did Annette Williams. They said you touched her.”
I did. A mistake. But an electrifying one.
“Her chin, no less.” Fee gave him a little twitch of her brows. “I will make a point to meet her. She is to come with the Ashleys Friday. That is, if Lady Ashley will leave her new baby for an hour. But I want to know, brother, will you touch the lovely mademoiselle again?”
I should not.She feels like mystery and raw intrigue.“You are too crafty with your speech, dearest.”
“Good. Tell me if you will touch her.”
He sighed. “No. I was rash to do so. But she is beautiful.”Beyond ordinary beauty. With all that golden-blonde hair and umber eyes.“Tall for a lady,” was the best he could manage, because his mind was a fog of her heady perfume and his body had strong reactions to the memory of her perfect complexion. But he regretted the touches, no matter how he’d reveled in them at the time. For she was unmoved. In fact, she had completely rejected his advance.
“She has a good figure, too, eh?”
“Fee, what are you trying to say?” He was not sure he liked it.
She shrugged. “Mama has told me all about the joys of a good marriage.”
“Of course she has.” His mother believed in preparing all her six children for mating, even applauding their appetites for love and affection. Occasionally, she had sold her ideas too strongly and reality had not always borne out the fantasy. His eldest sister, thirty-year-old Antoinette, had married for passion, birthed three sons, and now coped with a husband who spent his time at his club. Younger sister number four, Angelika, age twenty-three, had married three years ago for love and now saw it falling apart. They argued constantly. Halsey’s Angel was in a tither and knew not why her husband was so unhappy with her.
For this youngest sister, Halsey wanted the perfect match. A man to worship her wit and feisty nature, her lovely violet eyes and glistening black hair. So to help her find one, he would not limit her to any Season or any expense. Just as he would not limit himself when the time came to claim a woman he adored.
“Our mama, Fee, wants you to be happy for the rest of your life.”
“Exactly.” She pointed at him. “Just as we want you to have the same.”
“I will.”
“Well, then, a good beginning is a lady whom you find attractive.”
“I agree.”
Fee nodded. “So if the French lady is beautiful, tall and…hmmm…well proportioned, I should think, Evan, she’s perfect.”
“Beauty is not all.” With this one, it had propelled him to her. But it was her spunk that claimed him like a magnet.
“It helps. And if a lady is well fed, you can find her easily in bed.”
