Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (34 page)

She didn’t answer.

Finally, he spun around to face her
again. She simply shook her head with a downcast
expression.

“
You don’t understand,”
Emma finally said. “I don’t want words. I don’t want you to
simply
tell
me
you’re madly in love with me; I want you to
be
madly in love with me. And I don’t
want you to convince me I love you if it isn’t the
truth.”

“
You ask for the
impossible.”

“
Does it have to be
impossible?” Without waiting for a response, Emma crossed the
bridge and headed toward the main house.

He should let her go. There
was no way—absolutely, unequivocally no way—he could give her what
she wanted. A man couldn’t go from hating a woman with every fiber
of his being one week to becoming a besotted fool for her the next.
The world didn’t work that way.
Life
didn’t work that way, and anyone
who said differently—well, no one would say differently, so it
didn’t matter.

What did matter was that, like it or
not, he had to marry her. If he didn’t, there wasn’t a doubt in his
mind David would call him out. The thought that one of them might
hurt or kill the other, all over Emma Hathaway—the maddeningly
entrancing, impossibly giving woman that she was—well, it was
unthinkable. Aidan couldn’t allow his thoughts to go there, or he’d
end up in a far worse state than Morgan was in not so very long
ago.

If he had to marry Emma, it apparently
meant he was going to have to convince her she loved him and he
loved her, whether it was the truth or not.

He sprinted after her, catching her
before she reached the lawn. “So how do we go about it?” he asked,
trying to regain his breath. “How do we fall in love with one
another?”

“
I—” She shook her head,
questioning him with her eyes. “Well, I suppose we might start with
spending time with one another—doing those things that the other
enjoys.”

Aidan nodded. That didn’t sound too
horrible, despite the potential for his lustful urges to intensify
painfully. “Very well. When do we begin?”

Bloody hell. What had he just agreed
to?

It was such an odd
sensation, this whole
falling in love with
one
another thing they were attempting to
do. Aidan wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all, and yet he’d
promised Emma he would try—so try he would. Likewise, she had
promised to do the same.

Because of her dedication to the idea
that they must truly love one another, and because of his
discomfort with the notion of having a marriage with her in name
only (and his complete dedication to getting her in his bed), Aidan
vowed to avoid his hermitage and his art, making a point of being
with Emma every moment he could.

And so it was that he had gone out on
the lawn today, helping Emma to work with Morgan, Mr. Deering, and
Kingley. Sir Henry had also been present, damn his eyes. Aidan
would have preferred to ignore that fact, but had found it
increasingly difficult to do with the baronet issuing decided
glares in his general direction at every opportunity.

Perhaps tomorrow, when they repeated
the process, he might find it an easier proposition. Or mayhap Sir
Henry would suffer some ailment or another, causing him to miss the
morning session.

I can hope.

But at the moment, he stood
with Emma in the library even though most of the rest of the house
was out on the lawn for an afternoon of archery. This had to be as
sure a sign as any that he was devoted to
falling in love
with her, because he
couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a book for pleasure…or
the last time he’d allowed the opportunity to practice his skill
with a bow and arrow to pass him by. He’d never quite had the knack
for shooting with a pistol, but the string of a bow required a
certain finesse he likened to painting with oils. Every curve and
angle could change the entire thing, making the painting something
else entirely, or sending the arrow in the wrong
direction.

She walked along the far wall, nearest
the window, drawing her hand along the spines of the books she
passed, whispering the names of the authors. “Chaucer. Shakespeare.
Milton.” Her voice had taken on a lilting quality once they’d
arrived in the library. It seemed to flounce through the air,
almost in the same manner as the blue silk of her day dress
flounced as she walked. In here, in this room, she seemed as light
as a cloud in a clear summer sky.

When her hand settled on a
singular title and she pulled a monstrously large tome from the
shelf, it reminded Aidan that he, too, was supposed to be selecting
a book to read. That was how they’d chosen to pass the time this
afternoon, the way they were to share themselves with one another.
He wasn’t entirely certain how, exactly, they were supposed to get
to know each other better if they spent all of their time with
their noses buried in books, but it would make her happy. At the
moment, that was more important for his aim than just about
anything—keeping Emma happy. If she was happy, then she was far
more likely to believe herself in love. And if she believed she was
in love, perhaps she might also believe
he
was—whether either of them was or
not.

Alas, it was much more entertaining
for him to watch the sway of her hips beneath the silk fabric of
her gown than it was to select reading material.

“
Have you settled on
something?” she asked a moment later as she hauled the heavy thing
she’d selected over to a striped satin armchair near the hearth.
Her eyes didn’t come up from the page she’d already opened to—not
really surprising, given what he remembered of her from their last
visit to Heathcote Park three years ago. Thus occupied, she nearly
took a tumble over a matching ottoman.

Aidan reached out to stop her fall,
but she managed to straighten herself without his help. He put both
arms back by his side, but she’d seen his attempt to rescue
her.

She flushed with a shy smile. “I’m
afraid I’ll never be very graceful.”

“
I don’t believe I’d know
what to do with you if you were.”

A single brow arched above her eye.
“Touché.” Then she sat, her skirts falling into lines that
perfectly outlined her legs. The heavy volume fell to her lap with
a thud. “I thought I’d read Pope. I haven’t read any of his works
before.” She opened the cover and flipped to the first
page.

“
Pope?” Aidan repeated,
having great difficulty taking his eyes from the curve of her
knee.

“
Yes, Pope. Alexander
Pope?” When he didn’t respond, she lifted her head. A dark curl
pulled free from her knot and fell to drape over her shoulder, just
at the base of her neck. “The Rape of the Lock?”

“
Ah. Yes.” He remembered
one of his tutors going on about it once, but those memories were
long since suppressed. At present, he couldn’t imagine why anyone
would willingly choose to read such a treatise, particularly when
he could otherwise think about her legs and how they might feel
holding tight to his waist.

“
And what will you read?”
she asked him again.

Damn, but he didn’t want to read
anything. Aidan turned to the nearest shelf and reached for the
first book he found. “I’ll read the ‘General View of the
Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire; with Observations on the
Means of their Improvement’.” Good God. He wouldn’t be able to get
through that no matter how hard he tried. He’d likely be asleep
before he finished the second page.

Emma snickered. “I never imagined you
were one for such dry choices in reading material.”

“
Nor did I,” he muttered
beneath his breath. Nevertheless, he took his book to the chair
across from her and flipped it open. Even the first sentence had
him wishing he could simply nod off instead of attempting to get
through such drivel. After he’d finished the first page, he chanced
a glance up to see if Emma was yet absorbed in her
selection.

She was staring straight at him with a
cheeky grin plastered firmly upon her face. “Bored senseless
yet?”

“
I do not understand how
you can possibly find enjoyment from reading—”

“
I sincerely doubt there
are many people in the entire country who would find enjoyment
reading something like
that
.”

“
Then why was it written,
if not for someone’s enjoyment?” Aidan slammed the book closed and
set it on the occasional table beside him.

The corners of her lips quirked
upward. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe for edification instead of
enjoyment?” Her sarcasm was almost enough to make him
smile.

“
But we were supposed to be
spending time together doing something you enjoy this
afternoon.”

“
I do love reading,” Emma
said, “but no matter how much I enjoy it, I’d never be able to sit
down and read something like that. I like reading novels. Plays.
That sort of thing.”

Aidan nearly grimaced at the thought.
“I haven’t touched a novel since I left school. Even then, I only
read the things because they made me do it.”

“
You might be surprised. If
you choose a book because you want to read it instead of having it
forced upon you, you might just discover you like reading better
than you thought you would.”

It took great pains and sincere effort
for him to avoid scoffing at her suggestion. He put the effort in,
however, because he doubted she would react well to him openly
reacting in such a manner. “Is that so?”

Emma closed her book and set it on the
same table. “It is.” Then she stood and returned to the shelves
near the window. “Hmm. Let me see.” After a few moments, she pulled
out a brown leather-bound book and tossed it in his
direction.

“
Robinson
Crusoe
?”

“
Have you read it?” she
asked tartly.

Aidan scowled but didn’t reply. He
flipped open the cover and thumbed through the pages. At least it
wasn’t as massive as the Pope tome Emma intended to
read.

“
I thought you might enjoy
it better, to start with, than one of Jane Austen’s novels, though
I do think someday you could come to appreciate her
work.”

“
I’m not reading a novel
written by some chit.”

“
She’s not
some chit
,” Emma
retorted.

There was such vehemence in her tone,
Aidan’s gaze shot up from his book. Her eyes blazed, and yet again
the end of her nose tugged to the right. The sight was so
fascinating he experienced sincere difficulty in convincing himself
he shouldn’t intentionally goad her temper more often.

That would be counter-productive in
terms of his overall goal, so he fought the urge to give one more
little jab. Now was not the time. Once they were married, then he
could incite her to pique as often as he liked.

“
Quite so,” he finally
conceded. “Shall we read?”

Emma pursed her lips and gave a tight
nod.

Aidan inclined his head, and then they
each returned their focus to the books in their hands. The thought
of being married to Emma Hathaway grew more appealing by the
moment.