Page 90 of Irresistible
She was quiet a moment, her hand still against his chest. “Yes, but I can do that without submitting to become your wife.”
A hard knot formed in his gut.
“You weren’t interested in marriage until you became the heir. How do you feel about it now?” she asked, sounding slightly distant. Or perhaps that was just the thrum of his suddenly fast pulse in his ears.
“I am optimistic for the future with you. I think we could be a formidable team.”
She pressed her lips together, and he knew what she was going to say even as he feared it. “I appreciate you asking, but my outlook on marriage has not changed. I must decline your proposal.”
Jess pushed up to a sitting position and reached across the bed to grasp the edge of her night rail that had been flung across the now-rumpled coverlet. Drawing the garment over her head, she kept herself from looking toward him.
He also sat up. However, he did not attempt to clothe himself, so she either had to look at his tempting naked chest or keep her gaze averted. She chose the latter.
“I know you didn’t plan to marry, but we make a good team, don’t we?”
She couldn’t deny that. “Working together as a productive team on an investigation doesn’t mean we’d be a good husband and wife.” Except she’d considered that on many occasions and seemed to have trouble separating their pretend scheme from reality.
He turned his upper body toward her, his brow furrowing. “Our missionwasas husband and wife.” His features relaxed. “I enjoyed it more than I expected to, honestly.”
“That is a riveting testimonial,” she murmured wryly. But she didn’t disagree with him, dammit. Furthermore, if they wed, her parents would never bother her about marriage again. That alone almost made her rethink her response.
Was she really going to change her stance on marriage after all these years? If she were honest with herself, she’d already started considering it, at least when she’d spoken of marriage with Mary, if not sooner. Shehadliked being married to Dougal. So much that when he’d said he shouldn’t have allowed them to become intimate, the words had hurt more than they should have.
“You didn’t?” he asked. “Then I was mistaken.”
She didn’t answer him. It wasn’t a question of how she felt about their faux marriage. They were discussing the future, making that pretend unionreal. “Enjoying our time together and wanting to make it permanent aren’t the same thing.” Her mind was still tumbling through her shifting thoughts.
He’d asked her tomarryhim. Actually, he hadn’t. He’d blathered on about being a team and having an adventure.
“I see.” He slid from the bedclothes.
She glanced toward him as he pulled his shirt over his head. Returning her attention to the coverlet, she plucked at a loose thread. She flattened her hands on her thighs as she listened to him dress in silence. From the corner of her eye, she saw him sit on the chair at her desk to put on his stockings and boots. Tension stiffened her frame. She hoped he wouldn’t see the papers beneath the book. Not that he could read them without moving the novel, which he had no reason to do.
He went on, diverting her from her anxiety. “I’d hoped you might see the benefit of marrying me. Are you really going to avoid marriage to continue to spite your parents?”
She met his gaze, but only briefly before she focused somewhere to the right of him instead. “You wouldn’t understand. They took away my choice. I swore I would never marry.”
“That seems a shallow and immature reason to reject a perfectly sound proposal.”
Asa’s proposal from seven years ago rose in her mind. She hadn’t thought of that day in a long time. He’d knelt before her under the pink blossoms of a cherry tree and proclaimed his love for her. He’d said he’d come to England to explore and to learn, that he’d never dreamed of finding the woman he’d want to make his wife. He’d promised her a life of love and adventure, knowing she wanted both. She’d quite forgotten about the love part.
Until now.
Dougal had taken her on an adventure and—unwittingly—given her love. Not that he possessed it and gave it to her, but that he’d given her something that had summoned that feeling inside her. He’d cared for her, laughed with her, supported her. He’d made her feel special and important. Perhaps itwasa sound proposal…
She didn’t want sound. If she was going to abandon her pledge to become a spinster, it was going to be for more than convenience. She wanted love.
“Jess?”
His Scottish brogue pulled her from her reverie. She could almost pretend that Scottish Lord Fallin and Welsh Dougal Smythe were two different people. They seemed to be. She just couldn’t see her “husband” from Dorset speaking to her so callously—as he’d done on the way to Lady Pickering’s and again tonight.
She turned her head to look at him. “Did you come here tonight intending to ask me to marry you?”
Surprise flickered in his eyes for a slight second. If he hadn’t taught her to study people, she might have missed it. “You play a role quite well,” she said softly. “Indeed, I’m not at all certain who you are tonight.”
He stood, completely dressed save his cravat, which he draped around his neck. “I would be your husband.”
“But who is that, Dougal? You are in the midst of a huge change. How can you even know what you want? Or who? I may seem a good solution for a problem you need to solve, but you are no longer an investigator seeking answers and resolving situations. That is definitely not how you should go about finding a wife.” She straightened her spine. “You’ve known my position on marriage. It should come as no surprise that I would refuse you. Our liaison has not changed my mind.”
