“You know I love you, and I think you love me—no, don’t say anything.” He held up his hand. “You can’t ask for love: it can only be given freely as a gift, so I’m not asking you. But can we talk about why you think marrying me is so problematic?”
She sighed.
“Your sisters like me. They’d be happy if we married, I’m sure.”
“I know.”
“And Lady Scattergood probably wouldn’t approve, but—”
She huffed a small laugh. “Oh yes she would. As long as a few weeks after the wedding you left me and traveled tothe other side of the world, sending back beautiful, exotic gifts until you died. It’s her idea of the perfect marriage.”
He laughed. “Well, she’s doomed to disappointment, because if you marry me, wild horses couldn’t make me leave you.”
“Your grandmother would hate it, too,” she said.
“Ah no, that’s where you’re wrong,” he said smugly. “Last night when she arrived in London, she sent for me to deliver the usual rant about my finding a suitable bride and getting myself an heir.”
“Well, an illegitimate half-French orphan is hardly what she would think is suitable.”
“Trust me, when I present you as my bride, she’ll fall on your neck with delight and gratitude.”
“She won’t.”
“She will. I told her that I’d been in France, where I’d met and fallen in love with an orphaned, illiterate French maidservant who had been unjustly dismissed and who stole from me, but was very beautiful. I told her I wanted to marry her and that I was sure I could cure her of her larcenous habits.” He grinned. “Naturally, she had a fit—steam was practically coming from her ears.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “You are appalling, you know.”
He grinned. “I know. But when I tell her I’m going to marry you instead of my light-fingered maidservant, she will be eternally grateful.”
“No, she won’t. She thinks I’m an impudent, brazen, insolent hussy.”
“Ah yes, but you’ll be an impudent, brazen, insolentladyhussy. In any case, I told you, Grandmama enjoys a good battle. It keeps her young. So, that’s your sisters, Lady Scattergood and my grandmother sorted. What other barriers to our marriage have you dreamed up?”
“I haven’t dreamed them up—they’re real.”
“I know, love,” he said softly. “But let’s bring them outinto the air and look at them in daylight. I find worries are worst when you keep them to yourself and brood over them in the dark of night.”
He was right. She did spend a lot of time brooding at night.
“If I were marrying Reynard the wandering artist, it wouldn’t be so hard,” she began. “Although it would disappoint my sisters and Lucy. But I know how to do that, be that kind of wife. But a countess…” She shook her head. “It’s not just that I’m illegitimate and was born in the gutter, it’s that I don’t know how to do countess things. It’s different for Izzy. She was raised with Clarissa, as a lady, and knows how to do things properly.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, how to run a grand house, manage servants, visit tenants, be a gracious hostess, entertain guests—”
“Stop it. You do know how to do that, and whatever you don’t know, you’ll learn. Every young wife, no matter what her station in life, must learn how to manage her household. And you already know how to deal with people from all walks of life. You think you don’t know how to be a lady, but whatever Lucy Paton and your sisters may have taught you, none of it makes you a lady.”
Zoë was confused. Had she spent the last three years wasting her time, then?
He continued. “I’ve known many a so-called lady—fine society ladies with all the airs and graces and accomplishments you can imagine—but the way they treat those who they consider their inferiors would make you cringe. You, on the other hand, must have learned all the important things from your mother. I’m not talking about your accent, I’m talking about kindness to others of all levels of society, I’m talking about loyalty to those you care about and a generosity of spirit that leaves me breathless at times.”
She blinked and swallowed a lump in her throat. Did he really think that of her?
“Now, as to the so-called duties of a countess,” he continued, “they vary considerably and depend very much on the kind of earl you marry. Your sister Izzy, for instance, married Salcott, a serious-minded fellow who is bidding fair to become a mover and shaker in the world of politics and government. Correct?”
She nodded.
“And yet this man, a well-known high stickler, punctilious in doing the right thing, and planning a serious political career, chose to marry an illegitimate, outspoken and unconventional woman—presumably the very last kind of woman an ambitious politician should marry.”
