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‘Yes. Don’t you remember? Yesterday afternoon you agreed to marry me.’
‘No, I couldn’t have. It was a dream. A hallucination. I am not well—you said so yourself.’
‘Eleanor, if you are the one hallucinating, how is it that I am the one certain that we agreed to marry?’ He was smiling at her as the logic of that sank in. ‘I am in perfectly good health.’
‘But why would you want to marry me?’ Was this some kind of cruel joke to punish her for involving him in her problems? But he had involved himself—all she had done was try and get rid of him after that first demand that he take her to Lancashire. And he was smiling in a way that made her want to slide forward from the chair into his arms and…
‘Why shouldn’t I? I need to marry sooner or later, and sooner is probably better. You are of perfectly good family, and we know each other a little now. You are intelligent, capable, and you are in a difficult situation that would be resolved by marriage. A situation I helped put you in.’ When she still simply stared at him he added, his face suddenly expressionless, ‘And I have absolutely no commitments to anyone else, if that is worrying you.’
There it goes again. That door slamming shut. There is no one, and I believe him. So what is he hiding?
‘I am plain. I limp,’ she said.
And why is there no one else?
‘I am used to my own company, and stubborn and argumentative when I am out of it. I have no dowry as I have just lost my farm to a confidence trickster. I have never had a come-out and have no idea how to go on at the level of Society I imagine you live in.’
‘Yes, I know all that.’ He did not even attempt to counter the plain. ‘But do you actively dislike me? When I am not stripping off in White’s or trying to assist you, I mean?’
‘I frequently want to throw things at you.’
‘But in the intervals between?’
The smile was back and she wondered if it was a weapon, or perhaps a mask. He reached out and took her hand, turned it over and began to trace a pattern round and round on the inside of her wrist—a delicate, barely-there touch that seemed to go straight to something deep inside her.
‘When we kiss, for example? I seem to recall you found that…interesting.’
‘I found that very… It was not at all unpleasant.’ Ellie found that her eyes were closed, and every inch of her body, of her concentration, was focused on the drift of Blake’s fingertips over her wrist.
‘It could be not unpleasant every day if you marry me.’ There was the faintest thread of laughter in his voice. ‘You slept in my arms—you trusted me then. Wouldn’t you like to be a countess? Think of the good you could do…the charities you could support or found. Or the artists you could sponsor if you wanted a salon.’
Ellie opened her eyes. With them closed, and only his deep, warmly persuasive voice to focus on, she could almost believe it was possible.
‘I have responsibilities. The Grimshaws have been good to me and there are problems with the water supply. I cannot just walk away from that. I thought I was selling to someone who would deal with the problems—not someone who was tricking me in order to give me charity.’
Blake did not blink at the accusation. ‘I will have my legal people sort it out. I would have done so anyway. And if the stream is a lost cause I will have a well sunk. Say yes, Eleanor, and stay down here. I really would find attempting to court you over such a distance exceedingly wearing, you know.’ When she looked up at him, indignant, he said, ‘But I will do it if I have to.’
‘I need to think.’
She drew back her hand and he let it go.
‘Very well. I will be at home all morning.’
‘I mean I need time to think,’ she began.
But he shook his head and went out, leaving Ellie to stare at the door.
I cannot marry him.
Then… Why can’t I marry him?
He is infuriating, stubborn, and refuses to be serious…except when he is. He is cunning and determined and manipulative. He does not love me and he certainly cannot desire me…except when he literally falls on top of me or is half asleep. He will probably stray as soon as we were married. I will be an embarrassment in Society, although that is his problem, not mine. But I desire him. I like him when he isn’t being infuriating. I am tired of being poor and anxious. I would do my very best to be a good wife in return for all the things he would be giving me.
But one other anxiety nagged at her. Blake was eminently eligible. Titled, wealthy, handsome, personable, intelligent. So why was he not already married or betrothed? Why had he waited for her, of all unlikely brides?
Because I am not at all the kind of woman he might be expected to want? Because he is in no danger of ever falling in love with me?
Without asking him directly—something she was not willing to do—there was no way of answering that question. All she could do was examine her own feelings.
