Page 78 of The Lady Knows Best

“In fact, when Lord Ryland asked you about a widow in St. Albans, I thought . . .”

Ah. He’d wondered whether she might have overheard their conversation, but he hadn’t considered how Alistair’s teasing remark might have sounded to her ears.

“You thought you’d caught me playing chess.”

He saw her chin wobble in a sort of nod. “But why—why have you done it?” she demanded, her face still in profile. “When I see the man you are here, at Lyneham, so concerned with the welfare and feelings of others, I can’t help but wonder why you’ve been content to play the part of a notorious rake in Town, why you let yourself be branded that devil, Deveraux.”

“Make no mistake, Daphne,” he said, reaching for her hand, but settling for the arm of her chair. “Those aren’t mere rumors. There have indeed been too many women, too much gambling, and far, far too few checks on my bad behavior over the years. Alistair says I’m constitutionally incapable of believing myself disliked, and I always avoid being alone. I suppose that’s why I concocted this marriage scheme—though I told myself it was for my grandmama. To make her happy, and to do my duty to the title before I turned thirty. But the truth is, a wife, any wife, mostly meant to me that there would always be someone in my house. In my bed . . .”

She chewed her lip, then looked toward the window and the little cot beneath it. “And yet you gave me all this?” she asked, turning to face him again, her eyes the shade of the gray mare’s coat and the stormy sky outside. “As a means of escape . . . from you?”

He managed a weak smile. “No one ever accused me of being clever.”

“So it would seem,” she answered, with narrowed gaze. “Certainly not that knuckle-rapping tutor you found it necessary to hide from.”

“Well,” he said with a shrug, “I don’t blame him, now. I wasn’t an easy student, by any means. Always preferred to be on the go, rather than settling to a book or applying myself to some problem to be worked out on a slate. Numbers and letters are more often a source of confusion than clarity for me, but if I can just do . . .” He made a motion with his fingers like tying a knot.

“‘Lord Deveraux has never been a man for numbers, but he’s right good with his hands,’” she said, evidently quoting someone. At his bemused expression, she explained. “Your steward said that to Lord Stalbridge, at dinner the night we arrived, and it struck me then, though I couldn’t decide why. But I’ve been told my sister Erica was much the same as a child. When Bell and I were girls, most of our schooling was unconventional. Papa said once that Erica’s resistance to all the usual lessons, the ones that had worked so well for Cami and Paris, had forced him to come up with a new plan.”

“The old ways can’t have been easy for her,” he said, knowing how rarely girls had a chance to run and jump and play, but were instead expected to sit and stitch on samplers all day.

“No, I don’t suppose it was. But it doesn’t sound as if it was easy for you either,” she said, softly laying her hand over his where it rested on the arm of the chair. “I’ve never understood why people refuse to see children as . . . well, as people. People aren’t all cut from the same cloth, so it stands to reason they wouldn’t all learn things the same way—whether boy or girl, rich or poor.”

He thought again of her insistence on the need for a school in the village. “You’re a wise woman, Daphne Burke,” he said, dropping his gaze to watch her fingertip trace the back of his hand. “Surely too wise for me.”

“That,” she said, with a pointed look worthy of Miss Busy B., “may be true. But I’ll argue with anyone who tries to claim you’re not clever. You arranged all this.” She got to her feet and walked around the small room, touching everything, lingering for a moment over the desk before sitting on the edge of the cot. “You understood, without my having to explain it, how I would treasure a room of my own, a quiet place to retreat to on occasion. I’ve rarely been alone either. Rarely had the chance or the choice. But all the same . . .” She smoothed her palm over the quilt. “I have sometimes been lonely.”

He tilted his head. “Aren’t alone and lonely one and the same?”

“Not at all,” she insisted. “And I think some part of you must have always known that, or you would never have come here. Of course . . .” She hesitated, looking down at the toes of her walking boots, peeping beneath the damp hems of her skirt. “I suppose that also means that, even when you’re a married man, you may still sometimes feel lonely, might decide to seek out—”

“No.” He could plainly see what she had been about to suggest. “Because this is not about some nameless, faceless woman to manage my household and give me an heir. Not anymore.”

“Not about someone who would help you win your wager?” She glanced upward but did not quite meet his eyes.

“No.” He stood and would have paced if there had been room. “I thought I knew what I needed, but I was wrong.” She was watching him now, and he latched on to her tenuous gaze and held it. “I need you.”

The words, the most desperate plea he had ever uttered, seemed to hang in the air between them.

And then she patted the empty space beside her on the bed.

If she had needed any further proof that he was no gentleman, the speed with which he tore off his coat, tossed it aside, and crossed the cottage floor would surely have been sufficient. Setting his knee on the bed, he propped his forearm along the window ledge behind her, uncertain whether the cot would bear their combined weight—something he’d never dared hope for an opportunity to discover. He reached out his other hand to tip up her chin for a kiss, but she slipped easily from his grasp, sinking down to the mattress and inviting him with her expression to follow.

The ropes beneath the cot creaked ominously, but they held as he lowered himself over her. The bed was narrow and their bodies were aligned in such a way that it would be futile to try to disguise his arousal. As he cupped the back of her head in his hand and brought their mouths together for a searching kiss, there could be no question of his desire, his intent.

And no question of her willingness as she dragged a foot up his leg and hooked her leg over his hip.

“If we do this,” he said, slightly breathless as he broke the kiss and tipped his forehead to hers, “you have to marry me.”

He felt her smile against his jaw as her hands freed his shirt from his breeches and slid up his back. “I haven’t been privy to all the details, but I did think that was the plan.”

“Be honest.” He lifted himself slightly, holding himself away from her, if only a fraction of an inch. “You had your doubts. You’ve been looking for a way out of it.”

“I have,” she agreed, pressing her lips to his throat. “But I’m not searching anymore. I want this.” She tightened her arms around him, pulling their bodies together again. “I want you.”

* * *

Somewhere in the back of Daphne’s mind, Miss Busy B. cleared her throat.