Page 7 of Lord Garson's Bride
“I hate to play devil’s advocate, Jane, but your world isn’t exactly overflowing with hordes of eligible gentlemen.”
“I’ve had my chances.” Even if they were all over fifty, and not in the best of health.
He looked curious, but this time he remembered his manners before he pursued any details. “I’m sure you have. Your devotion to your father’s care alone recommends you as a suitable wife.”
She hid a wince. Again not a word about her personal appeal. One of today’s surprises was the discovery that her romantic younger self still claimed a place inside her respectable bosom.
“What do you want of me, Hugh?”
That impressive jaw set with determination, and his voice emerged strong and steady. “I want a companion, a mother for my children, a friend. I want a sensible woman who’s willing to build a life with me. A woman who respects and likes me, and won’t ask for more than I can give her.”
His love, he meant.
She crossed the room to stare sightlessly into the fire. One hand began pleating her gray merino skirt as she struggled to decide what to do.
This was a cold bargain, but it had its benefits. She might harbor hidden longings for what she’d never known—love and adventure and excitement. But if she was brutally honest with herself, her chance to experience those things had passed.
At twenty-eight, she was on the shelf, especially now her dowry was so meager. While she might like to think that her alternative to marrying Hugh was some resplendent future, the reality was different. As he’d bluntly pointed out, right now her choices lay in becoming her sister’s drudge, or moving to somebackwater and sharing her restricted means with a middle-aged chaperone.
Neither prospect filled her with unbridled anticipation.
She’d waited ten years to seek the life she wanted. But she’d left it too late.
Too late. Surely the saddest words in the language.
A sensible woman—how she grew to hate that adjective!—would say yes. As Hugh remarked, Lady Garson would have every worldly advantage. She’d have respect and influence. She’d also be part of a family.
What about love? Doesn’t that matter?
Her foolish heart cried out in anguish as it viewed the emotional barrenness extending ahead. But the bleak truth remained that love wasn’t on the cards, wherever she went. Surely if she must yearn, it was better to yearn from the comforts of beautiful Beardsley Hall, than from shabby rented rooms in an unfashionable seaside resort.
She glanced up to find Hugh watching her steadily. He showed no sign of anxiety. Why should he? He’d chosen his bride as a practical matter, much as she’d say yes as a practical matter.
If she said yes.
“You claim you want your independence,” he said in that reasonable voice. “I can understand that. Especially after running the show here for so long. I can promise I won’t be a tyrannical or a demanding husband, and the settlements will ensure a generous allowance.”
Jane fiddled with her skirt and mulled over her answer. She knew he wouldn’t be demanding. He was an unusually considerate man. Even more to the point, he didn’t want her. Not in that way.
A shiver that combined fear with interest rippled through her. She’d tried, not entirely successfully, to reconcile herself to dying a virgin. If she said yes to Hugh, she’d know what it was to havea man in her bed. And a young, virile, good-looking man at that. “When you say demanding…”
Heat flared in the gaze that swept over her in a thorough inspection. She shivered again. Not with revulsion.
“I won’t be a cold husband, Jane.”
She’d never met Morwenna Nash, but she’d heard the woman was a great beauty. Nobody had ever said that about Jane. Pleasant-looking was about the best compliment she ever garnered.
When she looked at this handsome man who offered her marriage without love, she was woman enough to regret her lack of allure. She shifted under his gaze and wished with a fervor she hadn’t felt since she was an adolescent that she was a girl who turned men’s heads. Then at least she’d enter into this bargain with some power of her own.
“You want children,” she said, heat rising in her cheeks.
“I do. I’ll do my best not to make your duties too onerous, but—”
“But that’s why you want a wife.”
“That’s why I want you.” He paused and subjected her to another of those scorching stares that seemed to pierce right through to her indecisive heart and stirring carnal impulses. “If the thought of sharing my bed is distasteful, I will understand that you can’t accept my proposal.”
It was her turn to inspect him. He was an attractive man, inside and out. She tried to imagine that big body rising above hers as he pushed inside her, but inexperience defeated her. No countrywoman remained ignorant of the mechanics of mating. But it was impossible to equate her knowledge with how she’d feel giving herself to Hugh.
