Page 22 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

He could not help wondering if she thought she was mocking him. “Lovely weather this morning,” he said, because it seemed like the right thing to say to needle her. He wasn’t sure why. And he wasn’t sure why he wanted to.

“It’s very pleasant,” she agreed.

“And you are feeling improved?”

“Since last night?” she asked, blinking with surprise.

He looked down at her pinking cheeks with some amusement. “I’d thought since five minutes ago, but last night will do just as well.”

It was good to know he still knew how to kiss a blush onto a woman’s cheeks.

“I am much better now,” she said crisply, batting at her hair, which, unconfined by a bonnet, was now blowing about in the breeze. It kept getting caught in the corner of her mouth. He would have found that vastly annoying. How did women tolerate it?

“I was feeling overly closed-in in the drawing room,” she added.

“Ah yes,” he murmured. “The drawing room is a bit confined.”

It could seat forty.

“The company was stifling,” she said pointedly.

He smiled to himself. “I had no idea you were on such uncomfortable terms with your sister.”

She’d been directing her barbs at the trees down the hill, but at this she snapped her head in his direction. “I wasn’t talking about my sister.”

“I was aware,” he murmured.

Her skin flushed even deeper, and he wondered which was the cause—anger or embarrassment. Both, probably. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

He paused to consider this. “I live here.”

“With me.” This, between her teeth.

“Unless I am mistaken, you are to be my wife.”

She stopped walking, turned, and looked him straight in the eye. “You don’t like me.”

She didn’t sound particularly saddened by this, more exasperated than anything. Which he found curious. “That’s not true,” he replied. Because it wasn’t. There was a huge difference between dislike and disregard.

“You don’t,” she persisted.

“Why would you think so?”

“How could I not?”

He offered her a sultry gaze. “I believe I liked you quite well last night.”

She said nothing, but her body was so tense, and her face such a picture of concentration, that he could almost hear her counting to ten before grinding out, “I am a duty to you.”

“True,” he agreed, “but possibly a pleasant one.”

Her face moved with charming intensity. He had no idea what she was thinking; any man who said he could read females was a fool or a liar. But he found it rather entertaining to watch her think, to see her expressions shift and sway as she tried to figure out how best to deal with him.

“Do you ever think about me?” she finally asked.

It was such a typically female question; he felt as if he were defending mankind everywhere when he promptly answered, “I’m thinking about you right now.”

“You know what I mean.”

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