Page 29 of In Want of a Wife
Her family had practically disowned her, her friends questioned her sanity, and former bride grooms had all run away. She was on her own now for the next few weeks. And there was still a chance at love.
“Are you eating again?” she said, smelling the most wonderful lemon tarts.
Rafe glanced up from unwrapping the baked goods in a handkerchief. “You don’t wish to see me if I haven’t eaten. It’s frightful.”
She brushed a hand against her mouth, certain she was drooling. She had barely eaten this morning, too caught up with nerves. But that tart…
He stuffed one into his mouth in the most offensive, yet strangely satisfying feat she had ever seen.
“What’s he like?” she asked, desperate to get her mind off food. Or the way his tongue so expertly licked the crumbs off his lips.
“Who?”
She crossed her arms, fighting off an annoyed growl when he chuckled.
“Henry is… particular.”
“About what?”
“Everything. He wishes everything to go in a particular way, and if it does not, he will not stop until he lets you know how you have ruined everything.”
“He sounds like my stepmother.”
Rafe finished eating the tart, and his fingers grasped the second. Lily held her breath, watching, waiting. This trip could be redeemed… Rafe could be redeemed if only…
He shoved the second and last tart into his mouth and moaned. “I’ll miss these tarts.”
“I understand now why you are not married,” she grumbled, reaching into her reticule for a book. She spied her Belgian chocolates and thought it best to hold on to them, even as her stomach growled.
“I’m not married because I wish not to be so.”
Lily raised her eyebrows, smirking as she opened her book. Better not to say.
“What is it?”
She continued looking at her book as the carriage rocked back and forth. She had never been to sea, but she wondered how sea captains ever gained their sea legs when the world was constantly changing beneath one’s feet.
“I would hate to ruin your morning, but if you are thinking your declaration of eternal bachelorhood is original, I sadly disagree. Seems men the world over like to think themselves free until they no longer find themselves not.”
He scratched his jaw, puzzling her over. Everything within her tensed as she focused on the words on the page. Or attempted to. It was only something about the way he studied her that made her cheeks burn.
“It’s best I never marry,” he said, his voice dropping off as he turned to look out the window at the passing scrubby brush. “And I expect not many wish to marry a naval officer. I am hardly ever home and have little to my name.”
Lily had assumed the trip would be a trifle more exciting than this. She missed Kate and Charlotte. Rafe was a poor companion with eating all the tarts and making boring declarations and vague statements.
“Why is it that you are seeking out another to marry? Why have the previous attempts failed?”
With a hard blink, she drew in another breath until the world slowed a beat. “If I knew, we wouldn’t be here, sir.” She felt suddenly as if she were a comet, hurtling through the blackest of skies. Or perhaps it was only that the tips of her ears were hot. “That was rude.”
It was rude and tactless, and the shock of it left her speechless for a moment. For sure, she had plenty of pointed responses, but they inconveniently lodged in her throat. An unfortunate common occurrence around men who tossed about their arrogance so freely.
She glanced back to her book, gripping the pages while embarrassment flashed to anger. But that was frowned upon, or so her stepmother loved to remind her. Titled or not, women were expected to swallow the bad actions of others and then smile as if no offense were taken.
It was rubbish, and it was on a very long list of why some days she wished more than anything that she’d been born a man.
Mr. Davies shifted in his seat. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend you. It was a genuine question.”
Lily nodded, never looking away from her book.
