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He shuddered. “I have brothers who can inherit. I do not see why I should be tied into the act of matrimony for a blasted title that will remain in my family regardless.”
“So you do not want children?”
“Children, I do not mind. It is more the wife part.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised. There were many bachelors in thetonwho were determined to stay so. Or else they would marry and still live as a bachelor. At least, she supposed, Oliver was not willing to tie a woman into such a match for the sake of his title.
“There are happy matches,” she said, “but I have never thought much of the institution. My stepmother and father worked well together but I am evidence of my father’s inability to stay faithful.” She sighed. “I often wonder how my stepmother had the strength to embrace me so.”
“I suspect if you were in such a situation, you would do the same. After all, one cannot blame an innocent child for the sins of their parents, can one?”
“No, I suppose not.” Eleanor stilled when she heard a thud. “Did you hear that?” Clutching her skirts again, she hastened between the trees to the source of the sound. She was going to find this woman and she could not let Oliver distract her.
∞∞∞
If Oliver had known he was going to be running through apple groves, he wouldn’t have worn his best dinner jacket. A branch caught his arm, and he felt an ominous rip when he tore free. Eleanor dashed ahead, her pale gown flowing behind her. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d pursued a woman but somehow it did not surprise him the woman he would be pursuing was Eleanor.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not shake the sensation that there was something special about her, that underneath that solid shield of hers lay a woman so interesting not even he would resent being tied to her for life.
He shook away that thought. Simply because she’d admitted to climbing trees and investigating criminal matters and fixing clocks did not mean marriage for goodness’ sakes. Besides, had she not just suggested she didn’t want to marry either?
A cry made his heart leap and emptied his mind of any other thought than getting to her. Oliver found her by the brick wall, hopping on one foot. “What happened?” He gripped her arms. “Was it the woman?”
“No.” She put her foot down, then yelped and hopped again. “No, there’s something in my foot.”
“Well, you will—”
“If you scold me for not wearing my slippers, I vow I shall beat you with them.”
He eyed the flimsy footwear flapping in one hand and gave a grudging shrug. “I shall say no more.”
When Eleanor tried to put her foot down again, she made a little hissing sound of pain.
Oliver bent to peer at her foot, releasing her arms and urging her to rest a hand upon his shoulder. “I cannot see anything. It’s too dark.”
“It feels sharp. Maybe a stone.”
He eyed the outline of her foot for a few more moments but couldn’t make anything out. He rose, tucked a hand under her legs and around her back and lifted her easily into his arms.
Eleanor squealed and tapped his arm. “What are you doing?”
“You can hardly walk with something in your foot, now can you?”
He couldn’t see much but he saw her wide eyes. He also felt her. All of her. Warm and soft and a welcome weight against his chest. Though she did not exactly relax against him, she resigned herself to his hold and rested a hand upon his shoulder.
He rolled his eyes to himself at the sensation the touch caused in his gut. He’d been with plenty of women—women who knew what they wanted and how. Women who were too experimental and wild even for his tastes. There wasn’t a single part of his body that had not been caressed by a woman.
Yet that touch. That hand upon his shoulder. It offered more than mere sensation. It was a hint of trust, an idea that perhaps she no longer entirely loathed him.
He liked it far too much.
When he reached the fountain, he set her down on the stone ledge and crouched in front of her. The trickle of water accompanied the thud of his heart when he took her ankle in his hand and lifted her foot.
“Oliver,” Eleanor hissed. “What if someone sees us?”
He glanced back at the darkened windows of the right wing of the house. “No one can see us from here.”
She bit down on her bottom lip. “Perhaps we should go inside.”
