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“This isn’t some sort of romantic challenge,” Ryan growled.
“I am not saying it is, but you are a handsome man. You have a fine reputation, wealth, status, a good circle of friends who enjoy spending time in your company. You are the prize catch of the Season.” Norman grinned when Ryan threw him a dour look. “I have had to rescue your worthless carcass on many occasions when you have been half in your cups and have been adeptly cornered by a marriage-hungry matchmaking mama. You know that.”
Ryan did indeed know that. He owed Norman – a lot. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that you can have any woman you want, but the one you want is the one who doesn’t simper and giggle foolishly whenever you meet her. Maybe it is the fact that she is unobtainable that makes you so attracted to her. Sian is the one woman – the only woman - you will have to work hard to get. You are certainly bamboozled by the prospect of having to work for her,” Norman snorted.
“What?” Ryan lifted his brows at him.
“Well, do you know what you are doing?” Norman challenged.
“Do I know how to romance a woman?” Ryan thundered, his voice loud in the quiet of the room. “Is that what you are asking me?”
Norman shrugged unconcernedly. “Well, for as much as you say you care about this woman, you are scratching your head about her as if she is a puzzle you cannot solve. You certainly don’t seem able to do anything about her. Maybe this dream you keep having is your inner frustration revealing itself. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with Sian not noticing you, but your inability to do something about the way you feel. I mean, what are you afraid of?”
“I am not afraid of anything,” Ryan snorted.
“Really? So, why haven’t you offered for her? Why haven’t you made your intentions clear toward her, and started a courtship with her?”
“You don’t understand,” Ryan sighed.
“I should think I do. How many times have we had this conversation?”
“My father is good friends with hers,” Ryan began.
“Which should make approaching her considerably easier, shouldn’t it? I mean, you don’t have to persuade her father that you are a gentleman who is worthy of his daughter’s hand. He already knows you, so don’t even think about using that as an excuse,” Norman replied. “You aren’t doing anything about her because I think you prefer to worship her from afar. She is unobtainable. You don’t want to take her off the pedestal you have put her onto because it means she will be just like every other female of your acquaintance.”
“Don’t be so preposterous.”
“Why don’t you do something about the way you claim you feel about her then? If you know you love her then nothing should stand in your way. No family would object to having someone like you make their intentions clear, especially hers. You would be marrying beneath you, and her family know it. She should be more than content if she was the one who managed to catch the attention of a man like you, and you know it.”
“It isn’t about wealth and status,” Ryan replied. “I don’t think that means much to her, or her father for that matter. Her father is good friends with mine, but they have always respected their differences in social status. Its an odd sort of friendship but they met when they were young boys and have never forgotten each other.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe you don’t want a romantic relationship with Sian because you have seen the friendship between your fathers?”
“I don’t understand,” Ryan replied.
Norman sighed because even he hadn’t thought that part of his argument through properly yet. “Maybe the friendship your fathers have is something you feel you should replicate with Sian, only it is difficult because she is female, and it is highly unusual for you to have a friendship with a woman like her.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Ryan replied firmly. “This is deeper. It is why I cannot fall in love with anybody else. Other women are irritating, giggle too much, or are petulant and whiny, or bitchy. I cannot abide it. Sian isn’t like that.”
Norman rolled his eyes and sighed when Ryan’s voice faded, and he returned to gazing blindly out of the window once more. He knew his friend was remembering the finer details of Sian’s visage. Leaning forward in his seat, Norman clicked his fingers repeatedly just inches from Ryan’s face.
“Look, she is pretty, I will grant you that. She has connections, although they don’t move in the same lofty circles as yours. Your families know each other, so you don’t have to worry about what her father will think. There is nothing, and I repeat nothing, standing in your way except you. If you want to worship her from afar, you have nobody but yourself to blame if she marries someone else; someone who does have the guts to approach her. It is going to do you no good battling through these nightmares and waking up miserable, alone, and thinking yourself in love with someone you won’t do anything to be with. It seems to me that you are a victim of your own circumstance. If you love her, and you really do believe it is love, then you need to do something about it. I cannot, and nor will she. It is down to you and you only.”
Norman allowed the silence to fall and watched the storm edge ever closer. He suspected that it hadn’t broken over the house yet because Ryan refused to make a move on the woman Norman wasn’t convinced Ryan did love. Until he saw them together, which he had never managed to do, he had no idea whether this was just some flight of fancy, or just Ryan wanting the unobtainable, or genuinely a case of unrequited love.
CHAPTER TWO
Sian followed her sister into the house and lifted her brows when she saw her mother with her ear pressed against her father’s study door. Looking decidedly thoughtful, her mother pressed a finger to her mouth to silence them both. Sian dutifully took great care not to make a sound as she closed the front door and began to remove her shawl.
“Whose there?” Martha mouthed as she jabbed a finger at the study door.
They all jumped when the door was suddenly yanked open. Pushing valiantly at her hair, Mabel pretended she was checking her reflection in the mirror which was, unfortunately, several feet away.
“Oh, are you done dear?” she asked casually.
Arthur scowled at his wife. He knew Mabel had a habit of listening at doors and refused to stop no matter how many times he told her it was rude. She ran the risk of bringing the family into disrepute, especially if any of their guests ever caught her, but she was too nosy to wait to be told what was discussed.
