She shrugged. “It would seem so.”
Lord and Lady Driarwood had sent Lady Mercy to speak with him? Alone? Did Lord Driarwood think he would propose without speaking to him first? Lady Mercy still hadn’t completely entered the room. One foot was on the carpeting of the drawing room while the other still stood in the entrance hall.
“I was hoping to speak with your father tonight.”
“Tonight?” Lady Mercy’s voice had a high-pitched quality he wasn’t used to. She must be uncomfortable with the two of them being alone. He had no answer to that. He could reach behind her and shut the door, but that would make the situation worse, and although her father must know the two of them were alone at the moment, it wasn’t quite the same thing as asking for permission to propose marriage. Was it? Were her parents upstairs, hoping that was exactly what he was planning on doing, and because of the stress of the ball, they decided to forgo formalities?
But formalities were formalities for a reason. And the reason for this one was obvious in Lady Mercy’s wide eyes and the uncomfortable way she held her hands together at her waist.
“Lady Mercy, please come in. Your father must know what I am about or he wouldn’t have sent you here.”
She raised an eyebrow but did not bring her foot into the room. “What, exactly, are you about?”
He strode toward her—one of them needed to have confidence—and placed his hand on the doorknob. She swallowed but stepped inside, and he shut the door behind her.
A quiet settled over the room, and he stepped in front of Lady Mercy. “What I am about is—” This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. He should confess his love and devotion to her or at least let her know how much he had missed her whenever they spent time apart. Somewhere over the course of the past few weeks, being near Lady Mercy had become a habit, like filling his lungs with air or falling into bed at night. She’d become a part of his life, and proposing marriage to her felt like a formality. He had no idea if she felt the same way, but he was ready to find out. And if he let her know his intentions first, then he could speak to her of love without restraint. “Frankly, I came here to speak to you about marriage.”
Her jaw clenched, and her hands stopped fidgeting. “In general? As in, you would like my opinion on the practice on the whole?”
“No,” Nicholas answered. Had she really no idea what he meant? The two of them were courting. Where else would a successful courtship lead? “Specifically. As in, two of us.”
She blinked up at him in surprise. “Why?”
Why? Nicholas opened his mouth and then snapped it closed again. He hadn’t expected her to ask that. He wasn’t even certain how to answer it. He took in her face, those freckles across the bridge of her nose... Someday he would count them. She was constantly surprising him, and it had been too long since his life had held surprises. “Because I think we suit each other, don’t you?”
“Is that all?”
What else could he say? He hadn’t realized he needed to prepare an argument for the case of their marriage. She must have known he was planning to propose soon. He hadn’t been subtle about his interest.
He couldn’t exactly tell her that ever since he had started courting her, ghosts of past relationships had come out in fullforce. Everywhere he turned, there was Miss Morgan, trying to get him alone. Or Lady Plymton, with her pitying eyes and touches that belonged in less suitable establishments than ballrooms. He was floundering—he had been for quite sometime—and somehow, she’d become his anchor. The one solid point, upon which, if he fixed his mark, he would not become lost. His northern star. “Isn’t that reason enough?”
She stepped forward, leaving him at the door. When she reached their little table by the fireplace, she turned and faced him once again. She no longer looked nervous. “I must admit I had entertained hopes of a love match.”
Nicholas slid his jaw to one side. She didn’t love him, then. Had he rushed her? Was she saying she needed more time to fall in love with him, or did she think that would never be possible? He wanted a love match too, and he thought the two of them were well on their way to one. But he had no idea how to make her fall in love with him in the rare snippets of time they had together. Would she want him to keep trying, or was this to be their last conversation? The thought made him wish he could start over or, no, not start over, not start this conversation at all. “You don’t think you can love me?” The question was out of his mouth before he could convince himself otherwise.
A faint smile traced her lips, and she examined the chair in front of her. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “And it seems like a thing a person should know before agreeing to marriage.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Do you love me? Because I don’t believe I’ve seen evidence of it.”
Nicholas rubbed the back of his neck. He knew the correct answer to this. If he wanted a woman to marry him, the correct thing to do would be to pull out the necklace he’d brought her and declare his undying love. But what did she mean by the fact that she’d never seen evidence of it? Hadn’t courting her been evidence? Seeking her out all the times he did? He wanted her ashis wife so excruciatingly, he didn’t know what he would do with himself if she rejected him. Was that love? He’d thought it was, but now she had him doubting. What exactly was she looking for?
“Lady Mercy.” He leaned forward, resisting the urge to sit down at the chess table. He needed to think. He hadn’t done everything properly—he was supposed to get her father’s blessing first. But she had come in alone, and that had felt like blessing enough. “The type of relationship I hope to form with my wife will only be possible with prolonged exposure. The kind of exposure that is not truly possible in ballrooms or Zoological Garden, but in time spent together daily—doing the small tasks that husband and wife do together—building a life together. You ask me if I love you? The thought of you haunts me anytime I’m not with you. I measure my days by when I can see you again, and I have a strange fascination with your skin. Am I certain I love you? No, but I’m certain you are the only woman I’m going to love for the rest of my life. I had no plans for a love match, or at least no plans for love to be the mitigating factor of my decision to marry, but somehow now I need it. You’ve made me need it. But my heart has been foolish before, and I don’t think it will let me fall completely in love unless I know you can love me back. What I feel for you is a spark, an ember that somehow burns as hot as any wildfire, and I know it will consume me whole when I give it the chance.”
Lady Mercy plopped herself down on her chair and played with her queen, still holding court on the back row. If his speech had moved her, she didn’t show it. Why did he blurt all that out? His head and heart were a mess, and no woman wanted to hear that after a marriage proposal. The correct answer was yes.Yes, I love you, would have been simple, direct, and probably the only way he could get Mercy to agree to marry him.
Mercy grabbed her queen in one hand and stilled it. “Whyhaven’t you given it a chance?” Her eyes shot up to him. “You have been frank with me. I will also be frank with you. I haven’t seen this spark you speak of.” Her eyes went back to her queen. “I’m not even certain I know exactly what love would feel like. I might... I might feel something like that burning you speak of, but I have seen love in the eyes of other couples. I’ve seen the way they are with each other. We don’t have that, and I won’t settle for less.”
Nicholas sat across from her but kept his hands safe in his lap. He had seen love too. Patience and Ottersby were desperate for each other, and Lady Mercy’s parents had a mature version of that—mutual respect and joy in each other’s company. But he couldn’t find a woman the way Ottersby had found his sister. Their courtship had been ripe with scandal. Ottersby must live in fear for the day Society discovered Patience had lived in his home as a maid for a month before they were married. He didn’t want something like that hanging over his marriage. Did he want more love than his parents had shared? Yes. His relationship with Lady Mercy had been a perfect blend of his family’s two examples of successful marriage. Proper, like his parents, yet fueled by the yearning he saw between Patience and Ottersby. Their relationship was as sensible as it was desirable. At least, that was what he’d thought.
He had no response for her. He thought he had done everything correctly, and nothing about their relationship had felt like he was settling for less. Lady Mercy and what he felt for her was more than he’d ever dared hoped for.
Lady Mercy sighed and leaned against her chair. She shook her head and motioned between the two of them. “What I have seen from you is calculations and strategy. You live your life like you dance: all the steps in the right order but none of the passion. Doesn’t that make for a hollow existence? The few times I thought perhaps you desired me, you would always reel away inirritation. Do you expect me to live like that?”
The room stilled into a silence where even the mantle clock stopped its ticking.Thatis what Lady Mercy needed from him? Passion? Passion hadneverbeen his problem. At least not in the way Lady Mercy was implying. He had more desire than he knew what to do with. He couldn’t trust himself. The last time he allowed himself to unleash his fervor for a woman, it had nearly ruined his life and cost him the respect of his father.
For the first time since meeting Lady Mercy in the corridor, the difference in their ages seemed astounding. She hadn’t seen what that kind of passion could do to a family and a home when it wasn’t controlled. When rules weren’t followed. He’d been in her place at one time, and he refused to become her Lady Plymton.
He closed his eyes, unsure how to answer her. “All the examples of wonderful couples you gave me... those are the good stories. The ones with happy endings. For every one of those, there are dozens of unfortunate cases of women’s reputations being ruined and men becoming known as rakes. We are always being watched by Society, even if you don’t realize it. And everyone in the House of Lords is waiting for me to make another mistake.”
“Another mistake?” Her voice was soft, and even though his eyes were still closed, he could sense her moving closer to him.
