Page 19 of Crying Wolfe
Her mouth fell open. “I’m sorry?”
“One thing I learned in business was that it helps to find familiar ground with people, something to compliment them on and to discuss at events. Marriage is essentially a business contract. A merger of two families. Besides, if they’re all going to be at our wedding, I’ll need something to converse with them about.”
An adorable crease appeared in her forehead as she seemed to ponder both him and his request with equal fervency. “Well… The Eldest is Honoria,Nora,we call her, is married to Dr. Titus Conleith, one of the most celebrated surgeons in the world. You should very probably donate to his surgical centre, and all you must do to get Honoria’s favor is compliment their son, William. He’s the light of their lives.”
Eli’s lip quirked. “That I can do, who else?”
“Emmaline is still at Fairhaven at present, looking after animals and interests there, but she’ll be along for the wedding, I’m certain. Her favor is not easily won, but she’s as loyal a person as one can be and is mad for horses, if you know much about them.”
“I guess I know more about them than I do about stars and meteors,” Eli shrugged. “I’ll bet she can teach me something new.”
That earned him a look of cautious approval, which lit some sort of glow deep in his belly.
“You know Pru and Morley,” she continued, wrinkling her nose as she did some calculations in her head. “I don’t suppose there is time for the twins, Felicity and Mercy, to return with their husbands, Gabriel and Raphael Sauvageau.”
“Wait, you’re telling me twins married brothers?”
She nodded, smiling fondly. “Not just brothers, former gangsters and smugglers from Monaco. They’ve retired now, as I understand it, and are happy to lavish their fortunes and their favors on their wives. Mercy is a strong-willed woman with an enormous heart and a penchant for investigation. Felicity keeps to herself and her books, though she’s lovely company once she gets to know you. She’s also endlessly generous.”
“I understand she willingly gave up her inheritance to your brother, Emmett,” he mused. “Never heard of anyone doing something like that.”
She shook her head as if still trying to make sense of it. “Nor I.”
“Your brother seemed…” Eli remembered back to when the clan had found him in her bedroom. The wiry fellow with a pretty shape to his face and with eyes as soft as his sister’s. Man was a Baron. He ran one of the largest and most profitable shipping companies in the whole of Europe and could barely look anyone in the eye. “Shy,” was the only word he could come up with.
Rosaline’s expression tightened with a defensiveness he’d not expected. “He’s studious and brilliant, elegant and soft-spoken and, most importantly, he’s kind. I very much wish more men were of his ilk. He’s had to face unimaginable adversity because of what our father did. The shame he brought…” She looked down, her expression coloring. “People can be so cruel. I’m sorry you’ll be likewise blighted by our alliance.”
“Hey.” He stepped up onto the dais and went to her, tucking a finger beneath her chin and lifting her face to his. “I’ve got nothing against shy folks, so your brother and I are going to get along just fine.”
A mysterious moisture turned her eyes luminescent as she valiantly fought it. “I—I hope so.”
“And as for the other thing,” he continued, stronger this time. “No wife of mine is going to look down in shame, you got that? I realize scandal is a powerful tool in this country, but you’re under my protection now. I’m tough enough to take whatever the gossip mill spews out, and I’ll rip out the tongue that speaks against you.”
It seemed to astonish her just as much as it did himself how fervently he spoke the words.
How ardently he meant them.
“I-I hope that won’t be necessary, Mr. Wolfe.” Her throat worked around a swallow before she extricated herself from his fingers and turned to the table upon which the telescope’s logbook sat. With stiff, efficient motions, she flipped open the pages and became absorbed with some numbers in arrangements he couldn’t begin to identify.
He watched her withdrawal with a pensive regret that bordered on diffidence. Men like her brother wouldn’t say shit like he did. Studious men—elegant, brilliant, soft-spoken…kind. Eli was none of those things.
It wasn’t like he didn’t understand that some women found him appealing, but they were largely frontier women. The hearty kind that judged a man’s desirability on how well he could build a fence rather than turn a waltz.
The rules here were different.
Shewas different.
As if sensing the intensity of his regard, she glanced aside at him. “Erm…Do you have siblings, Mr. Wolfe?” Her question was a not-so-subtle attempt to break the awkwardness that’d bloomed between them, and he was happy to oblige.
Looking away, he tamped down on a surge of familiar pain.
“Nah.” He leaned his hip against the table, doing his best not to crowd her as he watched her check and recheck the measurements he’d messed up when he’d startled her. “It’s just me in the world.”
“Your upbringing must have been rather lonely, then,” she said distractedly, making a neat notation in a margin.
“It was fuc—I mean—pretty crowded, actually,” he chuckled. “See, my pa was killed in the Civil War and my ma went west with a wagon company. She died of pneumonia not two years after, which is how I ended up working in a Nevada iron mine at ten years old. I slept in a bunkhouse with twelve other boys and men and never had a moment of goddamn—er—darned peace and quiet.”
Somewhere in his explanation, she’d quit writing, her pencil frozen over the paper. Once he finished, she arched her graceful neck to look at him, her chin touching her shoulder. “I don’t mind if you curse, Mr. Wolfe, if that is your way.”
