Page 42

“How could you possibly keep up a pretense as a gardener?

What do you know of gardening?”

“Very little. I’m learning, thanks to an inestimable monograph on roses by Henry Andrews.” His tone was cheerful, but his eyes didn’t look happy.

“I just don’t see why you’re here,” she said mulishly. “I’m not going to change my mind and marry you.”

He was looking at her so intently she felt as if her skin was burning. “I am in love with you, Esme. I think I’ve been in love with you since the first moment I met you.”

Fool for Love

115

“You’re cracked!”

He shook his head. “Unfortunately, I’m not the sort of man who does things by half measures.”

“You can’t be in love with me. You are—were—engaged to Gina. We simply shared an unfortunate. . . .” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t quite certain how to explain the evening they spent in Lady Troubridge’s drawing room.

“I am in love with you,” he said in his calmly assertive voice. “You, Esme, not Gina. I do not feel that sort of love for Gina, lovely though she is. And she knew it. I’m fond of her, but I love you.” He bent closer until she could feel his breath against her cheek. “And I want you, Esme, not any other woman. You. I realized while living in Italy that I should have just stolen you away from your husband. But I was too attached to my pride and my position. Now I know that pride is hollow and worthless.”

He must be deranged by guilt, Esme thought. That’s why he thinks he’s in love with me. He lost his reason after Miles died. She cleared her throat. “There is something we should discuss, my lord.”

“You called me Sebastian in the past.”

“That was the past,” she snapped.

By floundering slightly she managed to get her feet on the ground and stand up. He seemed to let go of her reluctantly, although surely he was grateful to have such a great weight off his legs.

There was something so Sebastian-like about the way he sprang to his feet when she stood up that tears almost came to her eyes. Even in gardener’s clothing, Sebastian had the most graceful manners of any man she’d met.

She sat down on the wrought-iron chair opposite and looked in the vicinity of his shoulder. “The doctor tells me that Miles could have died at any time,” she said without preamble. “I know that you must be blaming yourself for his death. I 116 Eloisa

James

would have written you, but I did not have your direction.”

“Thank you for telling me.” Did he sound relieved? Perhaps he’d already learned about Miles’s weak heart from someone else.

“I was wrong to blame you for my husband’s death,” she said in an offhand way, as if she were excusing herself for a negligible misstep. But the bitter words she flung at Sebastian the last time she saw him echoed in her head: You think Iwould marry you? The man who killed my husband? Iwouldn’t take your hand in marriage even if you weren’t astodgy—boring—virgin!

“I should not have accused you of killing my husband,”

she said again. “Miles could have died at any moment. Apparently he’d had two small attacks that week already.”

Sebastian was silent. Finally, she risked looking at his face, but she couldn’t read the expression there. He was staring at his hands. Then he raised his eyes and looked at her, and a shock ran through her body. “I would have killed him,” he said quietly.

“I would have killed him in a second, if I thought I could marry you.”

The words hung between them in the chilly air. Esme’s mouth formed a small arc of surprise. “You were engaged to Gina,” she whispered.

“I could have killed him for the way he dallied with Lady Childe in front of you.”

“But we didn’t—he didn’t—”

“Did you think no one noticed? I know you cared, Esme.”

His voice was low and fierce. “I saw you flinch when he kissed Lady Childe’s cheek in public. I watched the way you avoided him, the pain in your eyes when you saw him with her.”