‘My dress is the colour of leather.’ She moved forward again, standing more at his back.
‘Leather. Yes. Exactly the colour I meant. Just couldn’t think of the word.’ He turned sideways in the chair. ‘But you did succeed. I did not think of your boots.’
She touched his shoulder, pressing him to turn back to the paper, not wanting him to see the heat she felt in her cheeks.
He didn’t continue writing. ‘I cannot help jesting with you, Bellona. You need some escape from the sadness at Harling House. So do I.’
She made a light fist and rested the knuckles of her hand against his collar, just brushing at the end of his hair. ‘You don’t seem sad...’
His shoulders moved under her hand when he breathed out. ‘I know. But perhaps I am. And perhaps I am not enough. You are right in what you said. My life is all planned for me now. I no longer have to think what I should do—I only have to think how I should go about doing it. Generations of people have decided it for me and how could they all be wrong?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘No. I have lived in this world my whole life. I have seen what has happened to those who do not see the failures of others and who do not learn. A person’s mistakes are his legacy, too. His children can be lifted by their father’s past or have to fight it.’
‘I know that well.’ She looked at him and let her breath flutter past her lips. ‘If the wishes of others are so important to you, then you will have to marry soon. It is what you are supposed to do.’
His gaze looked through her. ‘I, too, know that well.’
She tilted her chin. ‘All you must do is seek out a woman who is fond of society. You have all that a woman might wish for and can put it at her feet.’
He frowned, but the words weren’t from his title but from him. ‘It is true, a woman may wish to wed me for the world I can give her, but how is that different from you?’
‘My dowry is not so large it will choke a man.’ She twitched her shoulders. ‘But he may cough,’ she admitted.
‘I was not talking of funds. You could wed well without a dowry if you would just accept our ways. It is not much for a man to ask.’
‘No. It is not much. It is everything. For my sister, she flutters about like a butterfly when people are about. For me, the eyes on me make my stomach feel seasick. The clatter at the soirée made my head hurt. Sitting with others with tea in my cup, pretending to like it, pretending to care about the brim of a bonnet, knowing I cannot even think of the right word to say something pleasant. I feel the same as a speck in the bottom of the teacup.’
Her hand fell from his back and she stepped closer so his gaze met hers. This time her chin tilted down and her eyes levelled at him. ‘Would you give up all that you care for to sit and pretend to like the taste of a foreign tea that tastes like weeds on your tongue, while you discuss the brim of a bonnet, and only wear boots that do not fit? For the rest of your life?’
‘Most women like bonnets and tea and those things.’
‘Then they can enjoy them. I do not wish to take theirs. I am quite sincere in that.’
‘Why do you not try?’
‘I have. I have sat in my sister’s house and I have seen her life. For the two years since I arrived in England.’ She held up her fingers. ‘I have travelled to London and made morning calls and walked in her steps. We returned home again. She flutters about there and her face shows that she has been in a garden of nothing but flowers. She says I can be a bee, too, and I understand, but her garden is wrong for me. And you—’ Her voice slowed. ‘You have not truly taken on your new duties. You have stayed in the country rather than go to town to find a wife. Do you not feel trapped?’
‘Do not put words in my mouth.’ He moved. His shoulders turned. He still sat, but his body faced her. ‘There is nothing I want more than to accept my duties. Nothing.’
‘You have not wed—’
‘I merely have not had the time.’
‘You are well over thirty. You’ve had more than ten years to look for a wife.’ She waved an arm. ‘Not enough time?’
‘Apparently not.’ His lips turned down. ‘And I am not well over thirty. I am thirty-one. At first, I was the second son and Geoff was the shining star in the heavens. Every woman I thought fascinating only met me in order to speak with my brother. I could see where their attention went. I remember that well. I decided marriage was not for me—until I met one woman at a soirée and I thought she was the one.’
‘Did she reject you?’ Her voice wisped away at the last words.