“Oh come,” she snapped under her breath. “I was trying to offer some kindness here, and in return, you feel the need to throw your greater position around this room? To remind me of it so plainly?”
“I like to make my point plain.”
“Well, you certainly have done that.” Her hands were back on her hips, her face red, and her manner bold. Something stirred in his gut as he stared at her.
When she lost that image of shyness, there was a lot more to Frederica than first met the eye. “I do not need you to remind me any more of it. If this is the sort of husband I am to expect in my marriage, then believe me, I will be very glad he intends toindulgein his freedoms and ignore me.”
“I don’t remember saying I would ignore you, but if it is my absence you are craving, then fair enough.” He marched out of the room, heading quickly for the front door. She scrambled to follow him, racing toward the front door. He glanced back at her when he reached the front stoop. “Until the wedding day then.”
“That is what you intend?” she spluttered, hurrying down the steps as she followed him.
“It is. Clearly, you are not bothered to endure my company in the interim.”
“That is hardly what I said — ah!” She tripped on the bottom step. Clearly, she was so lost in this argument that she did not look where she was going.
Acting on instinct, Allan reached out and caught her. It was an easier snatch from the air than the night before. He placed her swiftly back on her feet, but not before he caught the mad blush on her cheeks or felt the thrill of being so close to her.
Damn this attraction. I’ll have to find a way to shut it out.
“Wait. Before you go…” She reached out, grabbing his arm for the second time. Because her voice was softer this time, he hesitated, not quite reaching for his horse that was being held by a stable boy. “… how is Dorothy?”
There’s that question again.
He tilted his head to the side, watching her intently.
“She’s perfectly well. I saw her just this morning, and she said as much to me. Why do you ask?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter at all anymore.”
He was about to ask her what on earth she meant, but she turned away and ran back up the steps into the house.
A childish voice inside of him wished Frederica would stop. He longed for her to look back at him, to thank him for coming, to smile… anything! He even stayed where he was, so desperate was he to see her do something more before they parted.
Then she did it. She stopped in the doorway and looked at him. It wasn’t a smile, but there was something in those eyes that didn’t amount to anger. There was a softness. Her expression was so gentle that he almost walked back up the steps towards her to ask what it meant. Then she shut the door, and she was gone again.
CHAPTERSEVEN
“Will you not utter a word?”
Frederica jerked her head towards her mother, for she had barely been paying attention. She had been working on another of the silhouettes she liked to make, though she was so distracted that she cut her fingers with the scissors. She put the scissors down and sucked on the end of her finger to try and stop the blood.
Across the room, Magaret was staring at her blankly.
“Nothing to say?” Margaret held her arms out wide.
Frederica had many things she wished to say. She wished to shout about the injustice of being forced into a marriage so quickly, the anger at being back here under this roof again, and the fury that her mother and father had very little to say about her time away beyond their indignation that she had left at all. She didn’t say any of it though.
Principally, most of these thoughts were blocked out by another.
Lord Padleigh has asked me to marry him. How can this be?
When he had said the words that morning, she had been in such shock, she didn’t think she had truly understood the repercussions of his words. It was only now that a few hours had passed, and she had been allowed to rest, bathe and change, that she understood completely.
I am to be married to Dorothy’s brother.
“Say something,” Margaret begged again.
“Very well.” Frederica pushed the implements away she had been using to make the silhouette. She tried not to concentrate too much on whom in particular she had been making with that paper. She stood and faced her mother fully, who had at last stopped crying.
