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Perdie couldn’t breathe. There was a snarl of emotions in her breast, some of them warm, some of them still fearful. She was too young to want children, and he hadn’t mentioned those.
“Can you leave next year and travel for six months?” Perdie asked. “Can you travel to Paris and stay for a few weeks, and then onto Vienna, and perhaps Egypt?”
It was his turn to stare, complete surprise on his face. “I could travel…not for so long as six months. Not with the many responsibilities I’ve attained.”
“Would you allow your wife to travel without your protection for six months?”
Denial leaped in his eyes, but his lips did not shape the words.
“That is what I thought,” Perdie whispered. “You might court me in vain. I can make you no promises, Thaddeus.”
They felt like the hardest words she had ever spoken in her life. However, Perdie could not allow her hopes and dreams to be distracted by romantic notions. No matter how he made her tremble with want, no matter how she dreamed of him nightly.
“I did not ask you for promises.”
Her thought whirled at his dry, almost amused response.
But when he held her hand over his chest, where she could feel the strong beat of his heart against her fingertips, and asked, “So, Lady Perdie, may I court you?”
Again, the only answer she could give him was, “Yes.”
A touch of hope flittered at her chest; could he really change her mind? Would his efforts really matter? The only certainty Perdie had was that she would get to steal a few more kisses from him before the end of the season.
I daresay, impossible cravings and all.
