Chapter 2 #2
Her chin came up, those disconcerting gentian eyes meeting his gaze. “It isn’t what you think, my lord.”
It never was with proper English ladies.
“What do I think?” He took her hand—devoid of gloves—and placed it on his arm, feeling a spark of—something, something that wasn’t entirely gentlemanly—in doing so.
“You think I am reluctant to be seen in company with a single gentleman at an improper hour out-of-doors.”
Only the English could make a gorgeous, rural dawn improper. “Early morning is the best part of the day,” he said. “It’s the only part of the day we haven’t already mucked up with our fretting and strutting and carrying on.”
“Yes.” She stopped and peered up at him, an odd moment. She looked so long and so thoroughly, it took Ian a moment to realize, without her spectacles, she might have difficulty seeing. “That’s why I was out, because it’s too pretty to stay shut up in that room with Ulysses. But what you think…”
It was his turn to peer at her, until manners saved him and he turned her by the arm to begin their walk. He got her behind the tall privet hedge, where they’d have some privacy, and felt her relax marginally beside him.
“I have a certain place in the family,” she said, slipping her arm free of his to take a seat on a wooden bench. “Won’t you sit for a minute?”
Now that they were private, she wanted to sit with him?
But she clearly did. Her expression was so earnest, her violet eyes solemnly entreating him to spend a little time with her, probably to assuage her lady’s conscience.
Ian sat a proper distance away from her, despite the devilish temptation to rattle her by sitting too close.
“Thank you.” She let the shawl drape down to her elbows. “I am mindful, Lord Balfour, that you are considering a match with my cousin.”
“I am expected to marry,” he said carefully, because the mind of woman was a labyrinthine mystery, and this woman could queer his only shot at the Daniels’s dowry.
She nodded once. “Of course you must take a wife, but Eugenia is hesitant to marry anybody. She’s had three Seasons and any number of offers, but her mama is determined she should have a title.”
Ian knew this much, so he kept his silence.
“Genie is young and has odd, modern notions that marriage ought not to serve material purposes. Either that, or her parents’ example has disheartened her regard for marriage generally.” Miss Merrick’s cheeks colored slightly at these admissions.
“May I be blunt?” Because he did not have all morning to exchange civilities with this woman, even if it did appear the Lord had given her a wealth of shining dark hair to go with her pretty, solemn eyes.
“Please. Most people are blunt with me, and I’m not as easy to shock as you might think.”
Oh, right. Of course not.
“Is it marriage your cousin objects to, or the intimacies expected of a wife?”
Her eyebrows rose, but only that. Ian waited on her answer, because a marriage in name only would be a relief of a sort—also a bitter curse.
“Now that you raise the possibility,” the lady said slowly, “I suspect there is aversion to the… intimacies, though both Julia and I have tried to reassure Genie that her fears are groundless.”
“I gather, then, that you do not oppose the match?” And what would a spinster know of those intimacies?
“I cannot oppose a good match for my cousin. You see, your lordship, I am living the alternative to a congenial marriage. I have given Genie my word I will not maneuver her into a situation where her choices are taken from her, but if you and she were respectfully disposed toward each other, in my heart I would have to support the match. You would be kind to her?”
Kindness? What place had kindness in a discussion of money and security for his family and their kin? But looking into a pair of earnest violet eyes, Ian realized he had something in common with this woman.
She was lonely and alone even among her family. She was more alone with family around her, in fact. He reached over and lifted her shawl around her shoulders.
“You’ll take cold in the morning damp.”
Still, she watched him, waiting on his answer.
“I know little of kindness, Miss Merrick, but I understand honor, and I understand that a smile and an encouraging word can foster good relations when silence and criticism do not. Women are deserving of every consideration. I would show my wife nothing less than perfect courtesy.”
She shuddered, likely not at the brisk morning air. “Courtesy can be the unkindest cut, you know. My uncle excels at such courtesy, my aunt as well.”
So he had this in common with her too—a distaste for Willard Daniels.
“Marriage would spare you their dubious courtesy, so why aren’t you married, then?” Without her hair scraped into a bun or that pinchy expression to her mouth, without her glasses, she wasn’t at all bad looking, nor was she as old as Ian had first thought. And those eyes…
“I had a Season.” She said this the way an old soldier might talk about besting a worthy enemy on a faraway battlefield, her eyes going soft and distant.
“I had my come-out, I had a Season like every girl dreams of, but then my parents died, Papa then Mama, and the mourning took two years. By the time I was ready to resume my place in Society, my situation had changed.”
He let a silence stretch—not uncomfortable, with her sitting beside him—and moved puzzle pieces around in his mind.
Her situation had changed because when her mourning was over, her cousin Genie had been preparing to emerge from the schoolroom, and it was Genie’s papa, not Miss Merrick’s grandfather, who would control the purse strings, and both English and Scottish baronial titles.
“Your uncle refused to dower you.”
She looked down at her hands where they rested in her lap, her shawl again slipping to her elbows. “Perhaps.”
Ian followed the line of her gaze, noting that from beneath the damp hem of her nondescript walking dress, he could see the first two naked toes of her right foot.
A lady of hidden daring, then. He stifled a smile and brought his attention back to the conversation. “Miss Merrick. I have a sister, I have a young niece, and more cousins than you can count. I understand that family can be a trial.”
She nodded, eyes still downcast. “Uncle explained he would have the support of me for all my years, and then he did the math. Several Seasons plus a dowry would be a much greater burden on the barony than were I to accept the alternative, and he did give me the option of marriage to my cousin Matthew.”
Interesting tactic on the baron’s part. Ian stored that insight away for further consideration.
“You were not inclined, Miss Merrick? Her Majesty married a cousin, and the union appears to be prospering.”
“She married a cousin she’d never met until courting was in the air.
Matthew was like a brother to me growing up, and I could not do that to him, not even for the promise of children and the eventual title of baroness.
So I am a poor relation, and larking about half clad in the morning dew does not comport with my role. ”
A minor puzzle formed in Ian’s mind: children and a title were probably the greatest inducements that could have been dangled before her, a gently bred English lady—and she’d turned them down.
“I understand costumes and roles.” He reached over to pull her shawl up around her shoulders yet again, as she seemed determined to let the thing fall where it may.
“I’m disguised as an earl, for example, one who’s pleased to open his home to guests each summer when Her Majesty is in residence next door. ”
It was an admission. Not one he’d planned to make, but her smile told him she was pleased to accept it.
“You should not judge yourself for taking Uncle’s coin. He’s a trial on a good day, and he’ll dine out on his summer with the Queen for years.”
“And I’m not really an earl, not yet.” He glanced over to make sure she was paying attention, because this truth was one he did not want hidden.
“My half brother, Asher, holds the title, but he’s been missing for almost seven years.
We’ve started the proceedings for having him declared legally dead, though at the last moment, I expect him to come strolling off a boat, thanking me for my impersonation of him. ”
“Uncle knows this. He’s been spying on you for a bit.”
A confidence for a confidence. Miss Merrick rose a notch in Ian’s estimation.
“Has he now? I suppose that’s to be expected.
” And Miss Merrick no doubt feared such an uncle would also spy on his niece.
“Come with me, and I’ll show you where you can pick up a trail in the woods that will allow you all the solitude you want, most of it within shouting distance of the house and stables. ”
“Another time perhaps.” She rose, her expression genuinely rueful. “If I’m seen gadding about with my hair in disarray and my hems getting soaked, there will be questions at breakfast. You won’t tattle?”
This was important to her, her eyes suggesting it was tantamount to a matter of safety and peace of mind.
He got to his feet. “A gentleman would never reveal a lady’s confidences, Miss Merrick. Never.”
She looked relieved, and then indecisive, as if she might say more or take his hand to solemnize the exchange. But she turned, pulled the ugly shawl up, skittered away, then darted back to his side.
Ian had no warning. She rested a hand on his chest then went up on her toes and grazed her lips against his cheek.
He got a fleeting impression of warmth and softness and a little whiff of spring flowers before he had the presence of mind to steady her by the elbows.
For a procession of instants, she remained next to him, a woman who likely permitted herself no allies and no affection.
Ian’s hands slid from her elbows to her waist, sharing an embrace that was as comforting as it was unexpected.
She was not prim, fussy, and prejudiced. She was shy, lonely, and uncertain.
Also brave.