Page 14 of The Dream of Love
She continued to read, for he was too overcome with anger to do it. “Once this week is up, you need never contact me again. I will not accept you back into my home. It will be as though you died.”
“Wretched man,” Adam muttered.
Remi made no comment as she read on. “From that moment on, you shall be alone in the world. Find your own husband, although I am certain no one will have you without a dowry. Perhaps a dose of the harsh realities of life will humble you. If you do come home within the week and show me the proper respect, I shall provide a husband for you and a suitable dowry. The choice is yours. One week.”
Her father had signed it and added his seal.
Adam took the letter out of her hands because she was simply staring at it, and this troubled him. “We’ll figure out something, Remi.”
She refused to look at him and now stared at the river current as it swept past them with a steadywhoosh, whoosh. “What are my choices? He will undermine my attempts to find work as a companion or governess. He will cut me off at the knees if I attempt to be independent of him. So, what must I do? Grovel to him and hope he will not foist an ogre on me to wed? It is either that or find myself a husband I can tolerate. But I must find him before the week is out. How is it possible?”
She finally turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, Adam. I wish I was stronger, but the prospect of being penniless and alone terrifies me.”
“As it would anyone.”
She shook her head. “Not you. I don’t think you are afraid of anything.”
He frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I think our situations are a lot more alike than you let on. Why did you leave Inverness? Why have you not gone back there after the war? What horrors did you experience during the war that turned you into a vicar? A vicar, I might add, who preached faith to his flock, and all the while he lacked it.”
“That isn’t so. I got my sign of faith. I no longer doubt.”
His admission surprised her. “Oh, Adam. Then I’m glad for you. But I hold out little hope for myself. I am not afraid of hard work, but he will thwart me in anything I attempt to do. So far he has not bothered my friends, but I fear that will change after next week. How can I stay with Poppy and Nathaniel if my father will unleash his anger on them?”
“Nathaniel isn’t afraid of him.”
“Even so, what sort of friend am I to bring this unpleasantness into their home? No, I need a miracle in the form of a husband, especially one I can love. I’ll read Poppy’s book this very day. I’ll grasp at anything. Do you think miracles can happen in less than a week?”
Chapter Seven
Remi had givenher marriage prospects plenty of thought and came to a decision by the following day.
She was going to marry Adam Carstairs.
But how was she to make him fall in love with her in six short days?
Remi pondered this very thing as she took afternoon tea with Poppy, Lavinia, and their neighbor Olivia, the Duchess of Hartford, in the Sherbourne parlor. Last night she’d told them about her father’s ultimatum and admitted how she felt about the Wellesford vicar.
Poppy had leaped out of her chair, raced upstairs, and returned with the magic book in hand. She gave it to Remi with the most solemn look she’d ever seen on her friend. “The Book of Love,”Poppy had whispered as though it were a priceless treasure, “will lead you to your true love. You must read it immediately.”
She had started it last night and read through much of it. “I had no idea men and women approached love so differently.”
“You should have seen me and Beast,” Olivia said with a light laugh, referring to her husband, the Duke of Hartford, who behaved more like a besotted lamb around his wife even though he was big and daunting, made even more so by the black eyepatch he wore over the eye he’d lost fighting Napoleon. “Getting him to see me as a desirable woman instead of a childhood friend took delicate planning.”
“We approached it as a battle plan worthy of Waterloo,” Poppy said. “Fortunately for us, men are easily manipulated when under the influence of their lustful urges. And they are always under the influence of those urges. This is how they are made. They cannot help themselves. But it is their ability to love that civilizes them.”
Remi was hesitant. “Adam is a vicar. Is he allowed to feel lust? And don’t I need him to feel something more for me? I cannot marry him if he does not love me. I cannot trick him into it by powerful magic.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, there are no love spells, just…recipes, I would call them, for want of a better word. You would not be forcing him to do anything he was not ready or willing to do.”
“Are you certain? Because it wouldn’t be fair to him.”
Poppy nibbled her lip. “What you need is a plan to make him see what is before his very eyes. Right now, he is refusing to look at you clearly. Believe me, this is quite common. What we need to do is find someone to make him jealous. Competition is certain to bring out his possessive instincts. If he cares for you, then you will know it as soon as another man shows you any interest because Adam will turn into a protective ape and chase this man away.”
Olivia grinned. “Yes, he will seethe and glower at every man who comes near you. This is the wonderful thing about a man’s nature.”
“Even Adam’s? He seems to keep his feelings under tight control.”
