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“Of course,” he said. “And I shall meet you when—in a half hour?” His eyes were on Henrietta.

Only the very corners of her mouth turned up. “I generally speak to Miss Pettigrew for an hour at the most, sir. It would be very kind of you to accompany me home.”

“Not to mention brave,” he said, casting a look at the curricle. Her smile made heat lick through his middle section.

“Brave as well,” she agreed, and turned away.

“Mr. Darby!” He turned with a start to find Lady Holkham regarding him with all the affection of a rat-catcher eyeing his prey.

“Lady Holkham,” he said, “I would have requested an interview with you the very moment I left Henrietta at the school.”

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Her mouth tightened at his use of her daughter’s first name. “I should like to speak to you, Mr. Darby. Meet me at Holkham House in twenty minutes, if you would be so kind.”

She set off down the High Street without another word. He stared after her, nonplussed. Surely Lady Holkham must be happy to find that a suitor had appeared who cared nothing for Henrietta’s inability to have children? Then he realized that perhaps she thought he didn’t know that fact. Of course, once she knew that he didn’t want children, she would welcome his suit.

An ironic smile curled his mouth. He had told Rees that he would find a wife in the wilds of Wiltshire, and that was precisely what he’d done. He walked over to the Golden Hind and obtained a piece of foolscap from Mr. Gyfford. Then he scribbled a note to Rees: Found a wife. Marrying her out of hand. Thoughtyou’d be pleased to be the first to know. Darby stared at it for a moment and then scrawled a postscript. “She’s an heiress.” He addressed it to Rees Holland, Earl Godwin, and handed it over to Gyfford for the mail coach when it came through.

Then he set off, whistling, for Holkham House. All he had to do was clear up this little issue with Henrietta’s stepmother and he could go back to the schoolhouse and find his future bride. Ask her to marry him, and linger to steal a kiss or two.

Talking to the headmistress of the village school—an appointment Henrietta normally welcomed with pleasure—

was proving itself difficult. For one thing, she kept smiling at the most inappropriate moments.

Miss Pettigrew said something about little Rachel Pander, and Henrietta smiled in response, only to find Miss Pettigrew 130 Eloisa

James

looking at her perplexedly. But try as she might, Henrietta had no idea what the subject of conversation was. And when it became clear that Rachel’s hair was home to several species of lively creatures, there was no explanation for Henrietta’s grin.

“I’m quite sorry, Miss Pettigrew,” she finally said. “I’m not entirely myself today.”

Miss Pettigrew had clear gray eyes that effectively quelled the most rambunctious of students. “That’s quite all right, Lady Henrietta,” Miss Pettigrew announced. Henrietta shivered and said a silent prayer of thanks that she was no longer of school age.

But she still couldn’t make herself pay attention. Darby had kissed her in just the way that her friends had described as the threshold to a proposal. In fact, she couldn’t think of a friend who had been kissed like that and not received a proposal directly afterward. What’s more, when Molly Maplethorpe had described kissing as melting into a bowl of pudding, she wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, Molly had diminished the experience. Just to think about Darby’s kisses made Henrietta’s knees feel dangerously puddinglike.

Miss Pettigrew looked at her curiously, but kept going over the lesson plan for the following week. Henrietta contributed not a single comment. She simply couldn’t bring herself to care about whether the students were learning their numbers. All she could think was that Darby would meet her outside the schoolhouse in a matter of an hour, and then he would ask her to marry him.

He meant to do it. She knew that as well as she’d known anything in her entire life. She’d bet her life he almost asked her right there next to her curricle, except that Millicent happened to come along the street. Perhaps he would wait until the evening. Or perhaps she Fool for Love

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ought to drive them to a romantic spot in her curricle. Except how could she suggest such a thing? And where on earth could they go that would be romantic at any rate, given the chilly weather that was brewing?

Henrietta kept looking out the schoolroom window, and unless she was very mistaken, a snowstorm would descend on them within an hour or so. Finally, she used the storm as an excuse to escape.

Funny—she’d always like Miss Pettigrew. Honored her for her commitment to children’s learning. But today Miss Pettigrew seemed like a lonely, unclaimed spinster, dressed in gray with a high collar and her hair all in braids, with her clipped way of speaking and little humorous asides. She had never been kissed. She didn’t understand the way the world looked, gray if Henrietta considered the days before Darby arrived in Limpley Stoke, and shot with color yesterday and today.

The liquid warmth inside Henrietta’s belly spread a little further as she walked outside the schoolhouse and looked casually down the street. Darby was nowhere to be seen, but of course, she had told him she might be an hour. Her heart thumped, thinking of him. He was so beautiful. It was astounding to imagine that he cared for her at all. That he wanted to kiss her.

Best of all was the fact that he didn’t mind marrying her, even though they couldn’t have children. Just as soon as he asked her to marry him, she would dash up to Esme’s nursery and start getting to know Josie and Anabel—as their mother. Because that’s what she was going to be: a wife and a mother. Her heart sang with the happiness of it all.

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Biology Is Not a Polite Subject of Conversation