Caro in a bath of pink petals… God, what an image. He inhaled deeply.
She stepped away from him as he finished the last tape. “Thank you.” Brusk, no nonsense.
“I hear you’ve earned a moniker.” Any topic of conversation to distract him from the feeling of her still alive in his fingertips.
“Don’t you dare say it.” Her finger became a saber, stabbing at his chest.
“London’s Most Stubborn Lady.”
She sighed and dropped dramatically onto a nearby low couch. “Fools. As if stubbornness is a character flaw.”
“It’s not?” He hovered, his body casting a shadow over her face as she rested her head against the back of the couch.
She closed her eyes. “Of course not. I know what I want, and I go after it.”
“With yourplans.”
Her eyes popped open. “This one did not work out quite as I wished it to.You’veruined my plan.”
“What was this one about, then?”
“It does not matter.” Each word the equivalent of a sigh. So lost. The need to soothe her sadness like swallowing a firecracker—dangerous. “I just wanted to wed. To have a house outside of London where I can be alone. That’s all. A spot of renovation to keep me busy.” She peeked up at him. “Something to do.” Heaven and hell and all the world in between those… whisky-colored eyes that would be his undoing. They wavered, watery.
Tears.
“We’ll marry,” he barked. Down went the firecracker. Gulp.Boom. Where had it evencomefrom?
“We cannot!”
“Why not?” No backing down now, and… maybe not the worst idea, either. Usually, his impulses ended well. At the very least, no one had died yet.
Surely enough time had passed since he’d lost his heart to her. Yes, his body had decided to pick up where it had left off, and yes, his heart could roll all the way down the hill if allowed. But he simply would not allow it. “Why not?” he said again, pulling her to her feet. “I have a house I do not go to, where you can be alone. That’s what you wanted. And you are what I want, too.”
Her cheeks flushed bright pink between one breath and the next.
Hell. He heard it now.You are what I want. What a fumble. “I meant… I joined this game because the winner was promised an absent wife. If you promise to visit my grandfather with me a few times a year, I’m happy. That’s why I’m here, why I wish to marry. For him.” The old man wanted grandchildren, too. Hated to disappoint him, but he’d have to. Children were quite out of the realm of possibility.
“Us… marry? You and I?”
“We will merely continue as we have been for so many years—strangers. But we’ll share a name.” Ten years ago, he’d disappointed her, refused to give her what she’d asked for because he’d been afraid. But now he could make up for it. He could give her this—a marriage between strangers, a house to be alone in, a chance to work through her grief in whatever odd way she apparently needed to. “You live your life, and I live mine.”
Her hands, still held in his, flinched, twitched. “Are you sure?” In the candlelight, her thick braided crown of mahogany hair glinted.
No. Not sure at all. “Yes.”
She leapt to her feet, strode to the door, and threw it open. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon, we’re ready to discuss the marriage settlement now.”
Chapter Four
If one thingcowed Caroline it was her stepsister’s single eyebrow, raised almost to her hairline.
“Do not give me that look, Chloe.”
“Hm.” Chloe picked her way around a grave, wandering away from the Siswell chapel where Caroline was soon to be married.
“Nor that sound. And do not roll your eyes!”
Chloe scowled up at the chapel. Her thick black brows settled low over thickly lashed brown eyes grown speculative. Her tightly coiled black hair had been pulled up in the back and fell in ringlets about her face. “Backhere, after all this time. Your father would love this. You and Felix marrying. Old Siswell is glowing. You’ve added a decade to his life by agreeing to marry his grandson. It’s good to see Siswell happy. He was so despondent at Papa’s funeral.”
