Chapter Three
As the carriage rolled into motion, Amy was breathless, caught up in a dream, rushed along from event to event with no logic to link them. Her lips tingled after that brief kiss in a way they’d never tingled after her husband’s rare kisses. Now the man she’d mooned after as a girl said he wanted to marry her.
She resisted the urge to pinch herself. When she was a dizzy adolescent, head over heels with her brother’s picturesque friend, she’d imagined Pascal declaring his love. In her innocence, that had usually involved a rose garden, and a white horse, and endless yearning looks.
By the time she turned sixteen, she’d recognized those fantasies as mawkish and unrealistic. Heavens, if she’d thrown in a couple of unicorns and a troupe of dancing fairies, her dreams couldn’t have been more unlikely to come true.
Since then, she hadn’t entertained a single romantic thought. Until Lord Pascal had danced with her and revived the remnants of foolish girlhood that lingered under her practical manner.
She was too flustered to be tactful. Not that tact came naturally anyway. “We have nothing in common. The idea’s ridiculous.”
Instead of taking umbrage, he laughed with sardonic appreciation. “This is the first time I’ve discussed marriage with a lady. You could be a little kinder.”
“I’m sorry.” She’d noticed last night that for a man whose handsomeness was universally praised, he showed a refreshing lack of vanity. “You caught me by surprise.”
“I hoped to avoid any misunderstandings about where my thoughts are leading.” He still looked amused. “You’re not an ingénue, Lady Mowbray.”
The problem was that in most ways that counted, she was an ingénue. She realized that her hand still lay in his. The first time he’d touched her, her heart had turned cartwheels. It said something for how he’d distracted her today that she’d forgotten they held hands.
She slid her hand free and clenched it in her lap. “You’re mocking me.”
He frowned. “Not at all.”
“Then why would you say such a nonsensical thing?”
He cast her a wry glance. “Kinder, please, Lady Mowbray.”
“You’ll have to forgive my manners.” She sucked in an annoyed breath. “I’m not used to strangers wanting to marry me. I wondered if it was some peculiar London joke.”
“You’re a beautiful woman.” He studied her with a puzzled expression. “You must have men after you all the time.”
“Hundreds,” she said drily and with perfect honesty. There was her farm manager, and her tenants, and her neighbors who, after initial reluctance to accept a woman’s advice on farm matters, now clamored for her help.
She was startled when Lord Pascal accepted the answer at face value. “Exactly. So if I’m bowled over, why should you be surprised?”
“You’re very direct.” She hadn’t expected that. His extraordinary looks deceived her into thinking this was a man who would woo a woman in rhyming couplets. “You’re not at all as I imagined when I was fourteen.”
His laugh held a hint of self-derision. “I’m a fairly basic fellow. Does that disappoint you?”
She thought back to the buffle-headed milksop her infatuation had constructed in her mind. “No.”
He brightened. “So I’ve got a chance?”
She stifled a laugh. “No.”
This close, there was no avoiding his substantial physicality. The arms clasping her in the waltz had been impressively muscled, and the body next to hers on this cursed small seat was hard and lithe. And warm as a coal fire.
His hands lay loose on his powerful thighs, the reins draped over them. Everything about him was perfect. The idea that he might want a harum-scarum ragamuffin like Amy Mowbray was outlandish.
But of course, thanks to Sally’s efforts, she wasn’t that ramshackle bumpkin anymore. At least on the outside. On the inside, she was still her plain, outspoken self. The knowledge that if Pascal had encountered her a month ago, he wouldn’t have spared her a glance increased the feeling of unreality.
“Why?” he asked.
“In any true sense, we met last night. You know nothing about me.”
“The best part of marriage is all the things you discover after the vows are spoken.”