She shook her head slowly. “Not at all.”
“Travel can be pleasant if you keep an open mind and lower your expectations for the quality of service you receive.”
“You’ve traveled extensively,” she murmured, remembering a prior conversation with him. He was perhaps the most widely traveled of her male acquaintances.
“Yes. I sometimes wish I could do it all again, but I have more responsibilities now than ever before.”
She grimaced and stared into her cup, watching the steam rise as she tried to imagine all the distant places she’d never have a chance to visit. Not even a successful career in matchmaking might make half as much travel possible for her.
Sullivan turned slightly toward her, and she felt his gaze on her. Yet he took several sips of his tea before he set it aside.
Aurora glanced up at him eventually. Even sitting, he was quite tall and made her feel far too feminine by comparison. She swallowed, assailed by wishes she shouldn’t ever have about him. He would never be interested in her that way, and he wanted a wife above everything.
He frowned. “I have a question to ask you.”
“Oh?”
He glanced behind him first, and then inched closer to murmur, “You might think me odd to ask this now, but…do you like me?”
She drew back, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s a simple question. Do. You. Like. Me?”
His stare pierced her own, held her prisoner, as warmth steadily climbed from her chest to her cheeks. Certain her face must be turning pink, she set her cup back on the table carefully and answered without looking at him. “Of course, I like you. Everyone does.”
He sighed. “I’m not sure I believe that you do.”
Summoning up her usual enthusiasm to appease a fragile man’s ego was harder than ever tonight. “Why would you think I do not?”
“Just a feeling. You don’t talk to me like you used to. We never dance anymore. You are tense when I’m near, and you relax when I’m going. It’s as if you see something in me that no one else does, and it displeases you.”
Aurora blinked. “What is it you think I see?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “That I am a man only pretending to be proper and good for the sake of making a second marriage.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You’re not pretending anything, my lord. You are the nicest man I’ve ever met.”
“Nice? I’m not that nice,” he warned. “Not all the time. Certainly not in my thoughts. Especially not around a beautiful woman. You see that wickedness in me, don’t you? That’s why I make you so uncomfortable.”
He shifted in his seat, stretching out his long legs that she couldn’t seem to look away from. His words sank in slowly. Was he trying to make her believe he was anything but a proper gentleman?
She let her gaze rise slowly up his body. He was built lean but had none of that coltish awkwardness that younger men often possessed. He was a tree she’d enjoy climbing, again and again, actually, were he anyone else. Many women sighed as he passed them by without a second glance, too, but none of them had been with him. They had no chance against a memory that would not fade as it should.
She didn’t think him wicked in any way that might be a detriment. “No. No, I don’t think you wicked.” Not the way Aurora was. Her mind raced with untold fantasies at the thought of him being wicked now, though. But that would never happen. She took a steadying breath. “It is my understanding that you are looking for a bride this season.”
“Yes, of course I am. You’ve always known that.”
“Indeed, I have.” It was one of the first things that had come out of his mouth the day they met. His duty to marry. She shook her head, remembering how bleak he’d looked that day. And now too. “But I do often wonder why you are not married already.”
He squirmed in his seat. “I’ve yet to meet the right woman.”
“That’s not exactly true, is it?” She gave him a soft smile and placed her hand lightly on his arm. “You’ve met many women who could have made you a suitable wife. You always say you’re going to marry again, and yet you do everything to ensure it never happens. Perhaps that is what you think you see in my expression. Disappointment and realization that I could not help you overcome this last hurdle.”
He looked down at her hand where it rested on his sleeve, and Aurora withdrew it back to her own lap.
“What hurdle could be left? I came to the Hillcrest Academy. You were there, and if there was anything left to be said then it is your lapse, not mine.”
She sighed. There had been limits to what they could tell their clients to do and still be considered respectable ladies. They had offered polite suggestions for improvements and sometimes had to hope the gentleman could read between the lines. “What we spoke of there, you did need to hear. Absolution, understanding, and support. A sounding board. But…”