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“Should that happen, you might be inclined to change your mind about the wager,” Alex added. “She’s been uncommonly quiet so far this evening. She might explode.”
“Alexander, really,” Louisa’s mother said.
“Halford,” Lord Ashworth warned.
“If he’s going to be family, he deserves to know,” Alex said, then took a sip from his goblet.
“I won’t be changing my mind,” Lord Farleigh said.
Louisa stood abruptly and tossed her napkin on the table. “A stroll would be just the thing,” she said. “Thank you, Lord Farleigh. Please excuse us, Mama, Papa.”
She left the room with her head high, ignoring her brothers and not caring if Lord Farleigh—or anyone else, for that matter—followed her. And she intended to give Alex and Anthony plenty of words later. She was supposed to marry this stranger, and they were making jokes at her expense.
She made her way to the drawing room, with its french doors that led directly to the terrace and the formal garden below. Lord Farleigh caught up with her by the time she reached the doors. “Allow me,” he said and opened them for her.
Once outside, she walked along the terrace, stopping near the end and setting her hands on the balustrade. The moon was half hidden by the clouds and cast the garden in partial shadow. Lord Farleigh had followed her and now stood at her side.
She waited for him to speak, but he said nothing. He stood there quietly, as he always seemed to do. It was impossible to ignore him, however, though she tried for several frustrating minutes.
Finally, infuriated, she turned to face him. “Are you happy, Lord Farleigh?” she asked him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It should be obvious what I mean,” she said. “Are you happy—are you experiencing that joyful state of being in which one is full of contentment and blissful satisfaction? Happy.”
The moon bathed his features in milky-white light. He looked serious—definitely not happy, which was fine with her, for she most certainly was not.
“I am happy to be here on the terrace with you, Lady Louisa.”
“That is no answer,” she replied. “Or, more to the point, I don’t believe you. You don’t smile. You give the briefest of replies to every question or statement put to you.” She took a step closer to him and looked him straight in the eyes. “I will come to your assistance, by describing my own state of being. I am not happy. Since you showed up unannounced on our doorstep, I have done nothing but reflect upon the horrible truth that I have been summarily passed from one man to another during the course of a single day, the sacrificial lamb for someone else’s misdeeds, because of honor.
“Where was honor when my grandfather made a wager that impacted someone else’s life in such a way? My life.” She blinked back hot tears she had thought she’d entirely shed already. “What of me? What of my hopes and dreams? What of love?” She turned away from him when her foolish tears began to fall in earnest. She brushed at them furiously with her hand.
Her infernal brothers were right though; now that she’d begun speaking, it seemed she couldn’t stop. “I always aspired to a marriage of love, like that of my parents. Children need to be born into a loving family, with a mother and father who love each other and cherish them and don’t send them off with the nurse or the governess—or off to school, poor dears, simply because they are an inconvenience. Children!” She gasped, throwing her hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear heavens, does that mean you expect that I . . . that we . . . ?”
It was his turn to look her directly in the eyes, wet and puffy though they assuredly were. “I had hoped to have a marriage in fact, my lady, and not one in name only, yes,” he said evenly.
Well! He’d spoken one of his rare complete sentences—one that had succeeded in leaving her speechless for once, and, naturally, it would be on that subject. Men undoubtedly held strong opinions when it came to that. And yet his words and the intensity of his gaze had also left her feeling breathless and tingly, even though it was at odds with her general mood at present. She sniffed.
He retrieved his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “My intention has always been to be faithful to my wife,” he said.
“How comforting,” she said, adding a touch of sarcasm to her words.
“I’d say so, yes,” he replied, leaning his hip against the balustrade. At least he was being polite enough not to stare at her while she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. Blowing one’s nose was such an indelicate, embarrassing thing to do. “Many gentlemen aren’t, you know. Faithful, that is.”
“My father is not like ‘many gentlemen,’ then. He would never do that to my mother. He adores her, and she adores him.”
“If that is true, you are exceedingly fortunate,” he said.
“It is true.”
“As you say.”
He was silent then, and so was she. She dabbed at her eyes again. As a young girl, whenever she’d cried, Anthony had teased her that she was such a talented watering pot she should work with the gardener. Alex would counter that Anthony’s suggestion was an impossibility, as her resulting splotchy face looked so much like Medusa, she would turn the gardener to stone. Then they would laugh uproariously while she dashed off to the nearest mirror to see if what they had said was true. It hadn’t dawned on her until she was older that if what Alex had said was indeed true, her brothers would have turned to stone long since.
She’d also learned, however, that while she didn’t look as bad as Medusa, it wasn’t her most flattering look by any stretch either.
How utterly mortifying to be in this situation with a virtual stranger. This stranger.
