“Feelings for me?” he asked.
My stomach was filled with sparrows, fluttering their wings. “Yes. For you. Ones I don’t know what to do with. There are so many differences between us.”
“Differences?” he asked.
“You’re a lord and I’m a schoolmistress.” I folded and unfolded the hankie. “You’re rich and I’m poor.”
“I don’t care anything about titles or circumstances. You’re beautiful and good and full of life. How could I not fall in love with you?”
I wiped my cheeks. “It seems to me, Lord Barnes, that this wild country has made you wild.”
“The country hasn’t made me wild. I was born this way.” The corners of his mouth lifted into a brief smile. “This place is like me, wild and free. I listen to my own instincts, not those deemed proper by a society I don’t even believe in.” He brushed his thumb across my jawline. My breath caught. “Do you know what my instincts are telling me to do right now?”
I shook my head as the muscles in my thighs tightened.
“They’re telling me to kiss you.”
I couldn’t look away, drawn as I was to him as if an invisible force cleaved us together. I was an innocent when it came to men, but I knew the look of hunger when I saw it. This was not the appetite of an empty stomach but rather a craving only a man and woman could feel for each other. One for which there was only one single remedy.
“Have you ever been kissed?” he asked.
I nodded, dizzy. “Once.” And then he’d married my best friend and broken my heart.
“What happened to this fool who kissed you?”
“He married my friend the very next week.” Even after two years, my body remembered the shock when I’d heard the news. A vast emptiness had crashed through me, leaving me in a tunnel of black from which there was no return.
“Why would he do such a thing?” Lord Barnes asked, his voice incredulous now.
“For the same reason you would,” I said. “He married someone with money. Someone from an important family.”
“I can marry whomever I please.” Lord Barnes’s eyes flashed with arrogance but also rebellion. “I have no one to answer to but God and my children. I’ll marry for love with no regard for anything else. What about you? Would you marry for love or money?”
“Love. Always love,” I said. “Even though I have only love to offer in return.”
“And what would make you love a man?” His eyes twinkled at me. “If not money?”
“Kindness. Compassion. A curious mind.”
“What about a man with children?”
“I suppose it would depend on the children,” I said. “I’m particularly fond of the ones in this house.”
“Could you live in Emerson Pass and be happy?”
“That would depend on the man.”
He smiled and ran the back of his finger over my cheek. “Two things to know, Miss Quinn Cooper. I care only about you, not convention. And I would never pursue you without the hope that you’ll soon agree to be my wife. I’ve no interest in toying with you. My flirtations are not mere trivial fun. May I have permission to court you?” His words sounded strangely intimate, as if we were embarking on a journey where we were the only travelers.
I stared at him, probably looking like a hooked fish with my mouth hanging open. Hands shaking, I clasped them together and held on for dear life as the room seemed to tip. The world had changed in an instant. My world had changed. Permission
to court you. Agree to be my wife.
“I’ve never been courted before. My plan was to be a spinster.”
He laughed. “Respectfully, Miss Cooper, there’s no way you’re ending up a spinster. If I’m not to your liking, there will be men lined up at your door.”
“You’re to my liking,” I said, quietly. “You may court me.”