Page 8 of The Duke I Wished For
She had to be aware of who he was, and a man of his station could not afford to have a wife who was filled with such frippery. He was a duke after all, the fifth Duke of Hathshire. Still, she was alarmingly beautiful. From the first moment their eyes had locked, he’d been taken with her angelic features. Which was most inconvenient and, quite honestly, annoying. Attraction would only serve to muddle his otherwise clear mind.
But her attractiveness couldn’t be denied. From her thick blonde hair that crowned her delicate features, to her large blue eyes flashing up at him, she was perfection. And her smile…lush pink lips pulled up at the corners to reveal pearly white teeth.
It was a face a man could look at for a good long time. Too bad for him, it was attached to a silly featherbrained lady.
Did she not understand that she’d defied social convention and held him hostage for several minutes now?
And then there were her answers. Was embroidery so important? Of course, it was a valued, needed activity. Why, every man wanted?—
But he paused again. Was it actually important that his kerchiefs be adorned? He shifted, the thought unsettling.
He’d come to London, leaving his comfortable country estate, for one specific purpose: to find a wife.
Well, more specifically, he was here to find a wife that might act as mother to his four-year-old daughter. It was time.
He’d been widowed for nearly two years and now that his daughter approached the age of five, she was beginning to suffer from a lack of feminine influence. Or he assumed that was the trouble.
He’d hired a string of nannies, each more well-recommended than the next, each with an impressive resume of accomplishments, and yet none of them seemed capable of helping his daughter, Clarissa.
She retreated further and further into a shell of shyness and of late, she’d even begun a bit of a stutter. It was nothing serious…yet. But he was worried.
His chest seized to think on what her future might hold if he did not find a solution. He’d asked the woman before him what she knew about being a wife and mother and he found himself intensely curious as to what she might answer.
Did she, in fact, understand something beyond a list of accomplishments used by society to measure a woman’s worth?
It was an interesting thought and he found himself leaning forward a bit as he waited for her answer.
“Well,” she said as she licked those lush lips, and for the briefest moment, he was distracted by both the movement, the trail the tip of her tongue took over the plump flesh, and his own reaction to the sight. He was a man, of course, but it had been so long since he’d really seen any woman beyond her usefulness to his daughter.
“Yes?” Had his voice dropped an octave?
“I do know that being a wife and mother, at least a good one, takes some measure of kindness and consideration that has nothing to do with playing the pianoforte or violin.”
His chest tightened at those words, the rightness of them. Perhaps this woman before him wasn’t so empty-headed after all.
“I must confess—” he started to say, but his words abruptly cut off as her gaze drifted over his shoulder once again. She had to stand up on tiptoe to see beyond him and as the long delicious column of her neck stretched up, he took a moment to admire her pale expanse of skin, set off by exactly the right shade of purple in her gown.
A woman’s voice called out nearby. “Daffodil?”
Her eyes grew impossibly wide and then she was shrinking down again, ducking to the left. Without a word of request, she reached for his arm and pulled him, yes, pulled him to the right.
Daffodil.
The name suited her. Pretty, sweet, a ray of sunshine in the often gray spring. A sign of rebirth and— He caught himself, realizing he’d begun to wax poetic. What was wrong with him?
Still, he moved as she wished, now truly curious about the woman before him.
“You were saying,” he tried again. “That playing an instrument is hardly the mark of a good mother.”
Her eyes lifted to meet his, and then widened as though she’d forgotten he was even there. “Y-yes,” she stuttered out. “A daughter deserves some kindness and consideration.”
A daughter. His gaze narrowed at those last words, whatever spell she’d previously cast, broken. The comment was so…specific. If there’d been any doubt that she knew who he was and about his situation, her comment now confirmed it.
The chit clearly thought she knew what was best…for him and Clarissa.
“They do,” he answered even as her gaze flicked away again. “And you intend to be the sort of mother who gives such treatment?”
“Mother?” She looked at him then, this time, all that pretty pink draining from her cheeks. “Oh no. I don’t think I should like to be a mother.”
