No Place for a Dame (39 page)

He would do, he realized, a great deal for Avery’s sake. Including sending her back to Killylea without him, though every fiber of his being resisted. Hungrily, he filled his gaze with her, his planned lecture forgotten.

The gowns Burke had purchased at a discreet reseller of lady’s clothing might not be the height of fashion and might not fit perfectly, being a little too tight across the bodice and a little too long in the hem, but they were excessively feminine. And happily, since Ava Quinn could not have arrived anticipating she would need to go into mourning, they weren’t wretched black affairs. This one was iris blue with lacy, ivory sleeves. It was ridiculous and fanciful and utterly unlike anything he’d ever seen her in and he was smitten anew.

“Avery.” He wasn’t even aware he’d said her name until she responded.

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat. “The maid said Demsforth had been in to talk to Mr. Quinn,” he repeated.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Yes,” she said casually. “He wants to marry me.”

“
What?
”

“Neville wants to marry me.” She looked back into the mirror with a critical eye. Apparently satisfied, she faced him. “It’s really quite dear when you think about it.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not
dear
; it’s presumptuous! The insufferable pup! How dare he propose marriage with your brother at death’s door?”

“Now, that’s unfair. He didn’t propose, he simply informed my”—she broke off to roll her eyes in exasperation—“he simply informed
me
that he intended to propose.”

“Why?”

She went very still. “
Why?
”

“Yes. Why? He’s nothing but a boy and he’s only just met you. Why would he want to marry you?”

She lifted her chin. Too late, he realized his mistake. “Not that any man wouldn’t—”

“Pray, spare me your self-serving temporizations.”

He scowled. He wasn’t temporizing. He meant it. Any man would be lucky to marry Avery. This, unfortunately, wasn’t what he said. What he said was: “I resent that.”

“I’ll warrant not nearly as much as I resent your words.” Her lower lip trembled.

He started towards her. She held up a hand, forestalling him. “No. I realize that I am hardly any Society mama’s first choice for a daughter-in-law. Or second. Or any choice at all. And honesty compels me to admit that I suspect some part of Lord Neville’s proposal has this very fact at its root. How better to thumb his nose at his mother than to make a nobody his bride?”

“Avery, please,” he said desperately, holding out his hand. His heart ached at the hurt in her voice, this recitation of her shortcomings. She had no shortcomings. All the chimerical qualities of breeding and pedigree on which Society placed such importance were simply delusions manufactured to bolster a false sense of consequence.

She shook her head, refusing to take his hand. “No. Please. Allow me my say.”

He ground his teeth, unable to refuse.

She took a deep breath. “I do not, however, believe that to be the
only
reason for his planned proposal. Or the most important. Other factors enter in.” She glanced at him to see that she had his attention. She did.

“Marrying me will presumably assuage any remnants of guilt he might feel due to his involvement in, er, my death, though I do believe I adequately relieved him on that score. It will also allow him to act honorably and make a heroic sacrifice.”

“Marrying you is
not
a sacrifice!” Giles burst out, unable to contain himself. He was rewarded with a tiny smile.

“Why, thank you,” she said. “I do not think so either. And I may be doing poor Neville a disservice because I think there is one more reason he wishes to marry me, in fact, the most substantive reason of all.”

“And what is that?”

“He is attracted to me.”

“The hell you say. The impertinence of that great blond jackanapes! I’ve a mind to thrash his insolent hide the length and breadth of St. James Road!”

“You can’t do that,” Avery said, but he thought he detected a tiny bit of gratification in her tone.

“If he offers you any further insult—”

“What insult? He is
offering
marriage.”

Damn, she had a point. “I presume that you, I mean you as Mr. Quinn, dismissed the notion out of hand?”

Her beautiful indigo-colored eyes widened. “Why, no. Of course not.”

“What do you mean ‘of course not’?” he scowled again. Fiercely, again. “Why not?”

“Why not?” She stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses, which of course, he had.

She threw up her hands in disgust. “
Because
”—she leveled him with an exasperated glare—“I was supposed to be a dying boy without name or wealth, listening as the titled young heir to a fortune told me he wanted to marry my equally impecunious and inconsequential sister. Of course I didn’t say no! Had I done so, it would have immediately awakened his suspicions.”

“What did you say?”

Her gaze skittered away from his. “I, ah, thanked him.”

He peered at her. “By heavens, Avery, you haven’t actually developed a tendre for
Neville Demsforth
?” he asked incredulously and laughed.

He didn’t actually feel like laughing. He felt like taking her in his arms and kissing her until she told him she loved him and no one else. But he’d laughed to show her how ridiculous it would be to seriously consider Demsforth’s suit. Because she mustn’t. She must not consider marrying anyone but him.

Her expression grew shuttered. For a long moment she simply studied him. He shifted uneasily.

“Haven’t I?” she finally murmured.

“No.”

He was acting badly. He knew that. But he didn’t seem able to help himself. What had happened to his much-vaunted self-possession? Why couldn’t he act reasonably, with dignified acceptance, feigning deference to whatever she might say? Because where she was concerned he could not pretend. Whenever he tried, his mask quickly cracked, exposing his true feelings and the man beneath.

The realization took his breath away and alarmed him—what if she did not like what she saw? For the first time in his adulthood someone knew who he was behind the construct.

“Why shouldn’t I marry him?” she was saying. She started across the
room towards him, her brow puckered thoughtfully. “One day Neville will come into a considerable fortune.”

“But until then you will have to live with his mother.”

She nodded without looking at him. “Point taken. But he also stands third in line to the Higgstinton dukedom.”

“Those standing between him and the dukedom are as revoltingly hearty as Demsforth himself.”

“Really? How disappointing.” She sighed. “Still, I am quite convinced he would be an undemanding husband, one who would never think to interrupt me at my studies. Why wouldn’t I marry him?”

He could take it no more. He had waited and planned and tried to keep away until this mess was cleared up and now it was falling about him, leaving him with just one recourse. He strode across the room and swept her into his embrace. “Because you must marry me,” he said and, clasping the back of her head in his palm, crushed her mouth beneath his.

With breathtaking eagerness, her arms wrapped around his neck, her soft contours molding to his. Her mouth opened in intoxicating invitation. He speared his fingers through her curls, luxuriating in their clean, silky texture. He kissed her fiercely, deeply, plundering the rich moist vales of her mouth, dizzied by the responsiveness of her lips and tongue. Only after long, luscious moments did he find the wherewithal to lift his head, and even then his lips caught and returned for another heated kiss.

He set his forehead against hers, his breath coming quick. “You must marry me.”

She raised her hand and stroked his cheek, her eyes as beautiful and mysterious as a velvety star-spangled sky. He caught her hand in his and pressed a soft kiss on each knuckle and then against her inner wrist where the pulse pattered wildly.

“Why?” she whispered. “I do not belong to the exalted world you inhabit. I never will.”

“I do not belong there either,” he said, willing her to believe him. Later he would tell her, everything or nothing, whatever she wanted to know. He would keep nothing back. He wanted her to share every aspect of the life he intended them to lead, with full knowledge of what had gone before. But not now. Now, he had to convince her to marry him. “All my life, I’ve been a tourist, a visitor playing whatever role was
required at that moment. Except with you. With you, I am home. With you, I belong.”

She looked deeply into his eyes. He had never felt so exposed, so vulnerable. So sure. “And that is why I should marry you?” she whispered.

He thought of all the answers he might give her, considered laying at her feet a list of everything that might possibly recommend him: his wealth and credentials, his titles and his holdings; promises that he would support her studies, follow her around the bloody globe, build a telescope for her if that’s what she wanted. But in the end he gave her the only answer that would mean a thing to her.

“No,” he said. “Marry me because I love you.”

And it was enough.

Chapter Forty

A
nother peasouper held London in its grip. A sulfurous color tinted a fog so thick one couldn’t see across the courtyard of the posting inn where Avery awaited the carriage that would take her away. She perched on a hard wooden bench just inside the door. Several fellow travelers sat at a nearby table, mittened hands wrapped around steaming tin mugs of coffee or thin chocolate.

She shivered, pulling her thick angora cape higher around her neck. Giles stood staring out a front window weeping with condensation, his hands tightly clasped behind his back. More than a few of the inn’s female occupants sent fascinated, admiring sidelong glances in his direction. She could hardly blame them. He was incongruous amongst this lot. His dark blue greatcoat set off the breadth of his shoulders and acted as a foil to his golden good looks. Jonquil gloves molded over strong, lean hands and, despite the mud and puddles through which he’d escorted her, his boots gleamed.

He caught her studying him and gave a tight smile before turning back to the window as if the sight of her pained him. They had said their good-byes in the carriage ride over, sitting stiffly across from each
other. Though he had not touched her, his expression had been ardent and yearning.

In the end, it had all been so ridiculously easy. All her fears, her concern for his reputation and position, her resolve to continue her astronomical work, her anxiety that someday he might regret marrying someone who had brought so little to the union… all of it had vanished in the time it took to whisper, “Because I love you.”

She’d been swift to answer that she loved him, too. With all her heart.

“It will only be six months,” he suddenly said, his attention still fixed on the swirl of snow that had coalesced out of the frigid fog.

“I know.” She hesitated. “Heaven knows I am hardly a font of information on protocol, but I thought that propriety demanded a year’s mourning after the death of a relative before one could wed.”

“Propriety be damned,” he said. “Six months. Unless…” He glanced at her waist.

She smiled. “I’m not.”

He returned her smile, though his was chagrined. “It would have been a good excuse. This will be the bloody longest six months of my life.” He frowned. “You’ll write?”

“Probably more than you’ll like to read.”

“Never.”

And then the carriage had been loaded, and the porter was calling out that they were to embark. Around her, the other passengers were rising to their feet, collecting satchels and boxes and bidding farewell to the smattering of friends and relatives that had come to bid them adieu.

Giles did not move. He folded his hands behind his back and tipped his head. “I hate this, you know,” he said conversationally.

“I know. But you are the one that insisted we submit to societal expectations. I would elope with you now, if you’d like,” she offered. She meant it most fervently. “Right now.”

His lips parted and he jerked towards her a step before suddenly halting. Firmly, he pressed his lips together.

“No,” he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. “No. In this I will not be precipitous. This is not for my sake, Avery. It’s not even for your own. It’s for our children’s sake. The dozens of children we shall have. By chance one or two of them might actually be concerned about
Society’s good opinion. They might even require its approval. Though God knows why, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.”

She loved him for that. “Dozens of children?”

He grinned. “Give or take.”

She grinned back and held out her hands and he clasped them close, helping her to her feet. “I must go. They’ll leave without me.”

“They wouldn’t dare.” She had to smile at such arrogance, though she recognized it was true.

“Then I do not want to keep anyone on the coach from their heart’s journey’s end,” she said. “For I swear, if I knew someone was keeping me five minutes from your arms, I would shoot them.”