“Need you point that out? Yesterday, I felt confident that if I applied myself, I would have the answer. You see, until today, I had not truly attempted to get to know the gentlemen. So today, I applied myself. Yet no answer. It’s most puzzling.”
“It takes more than a few hours to know a man, Lady Jane.” Or a woman. He’d known her as long as he could remember, yet she still surprised him. Her backside, for example. He’d never realized quite how alluring it was. And now he knew, he could not forget.
Edmund had opened a Pandora’s box.
Jane shrugged and poured some wine for the both of them. When she set the bottle on the table, one corner of her lush mouth tipped up in a smile. “I only have six days to get to know them, so I must work quickly. A single day must accomplish an entire month’s work. And there lies your usefulness. You’ve known these men for some time, yes?”
“I have.”
“Your greater knowledge of them, their habits, their virtues, and flaws, combined with my own reactions to them, should speed along the process, make my own decision-making much less arduous.”
He drew a circle on the arm of the chair with his fingertip, trying not to show his elation. He’d come here to help, to make amends for his failure to protect her in London. And now he could. And he would have something to fill his time until he could return to Martha. Much better to spend one’s days productively.
He patted the invisible circles he’d traced into the upholstery. “I’m happy to help, Lady Jane. Together, we will find you a husband.”
She beamed at him with such relief in her expression that he wished to pull her into his lap, drink in her joy by setting his lips to—
He shut the thought down, closed a door on it and locked that door tight. His body had been mere moments away from making his thoughts a reality. Thank goodness for his injured arm, bent and bound into a sling. Hampered so, he could not do as his body compelled him to.
That privilege of her body belonged to her future husband. The husband he would help her choose. That she’d come to him for help led to further admiration. Jane was an independent sort but knew when she could not go it alone. Excellent qualities, both.
He sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “I know the men well, but it would help if I could know your own,ahem, desires better. What do you wish for in a husband?”
Her fingers began a rapid tattoo on the table. “I’m not precisely sure.”
“Hm. No wonder you cannot come to a decision. If you do not know what sort of husband you want, you will not know him when you see him. We’ll have to establish the basics first.”
“Never having been married, you cannot help me with that.” She sighed and stood. “Ah, well. I’ll look elsewhere for—”
“Sit back down, Jane.”
She sat. “Did you… bark at me?”
He smiled to soften the edge of his previous command. “I can help you. Still.”
“I do not see how.”
“I do not myself enjoy marital felicity, but that does not mean I’ve never thought of it. In fact, in the past year, I’ve put much consideration into the concept of marriage. In an intellectual sort of way.” It had to be intellectual. Practically, he could not offer a woman a happy, healthy, safe home as a wife and mother. He could not bring children into his world. Not yet. The familiar sadness settled in his gut. Perhaps one day.
“Have you?” She took another sip of wine and appeared disinterested, but the way her gaze sliced to him through the corner of her eyes told him otherwise.
“Oh, yes. I was thinking of the comfort it would bring a man to have a lovely wife at home. And of the comfort I could bring a wife.”
“Are husbands comfortable creatures?”
“They certainly should be.”
She twisted her lips to the side and stared into the fire.
“Are you more comfortable with one of your suitors than the other?”
Her eyes flicked his way, then back toward the flames. “Perhaps… perhaps Quillsby. He’s quite nice. And comfortable.”
“Good.” George did not feel good about that.
“What else?”
George picked up the spoon and stirred it in the scant remaining broth. “When a lady has a husband, she should never have to worry about money. And I can confirm all the suitors I suggested are financially responsible. But it might be nice if a wife had an interest in her husband’s business. In the aristocracy, husband and wife are in the same business of uplifting the title, providing heirs, and maintaining the estates, each in their own ways. But in the lower classes, things will be a tad different.”
