Page 71 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

“We can’t go on this way,” she said as if reading his mind.

“What way shall we go on?” popped out of his mouth. “Sorry. What I meant was, you should marry me.”

“Should.”

“Yes.” He struggled with impatience. To pull her back to him now would be a mistake. The spark in her eyes told him that. “It simply makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Yes, Jean. It does. We enjoy each other’s company and have much in common. You care about Geoffrey. You like kissing me.”

She started to speak.

“You cannot honestly deny that. Not after the last few minutes.”

She looked away, but not before he saw agreement on her face.

“You could be happy here,” Benjamin continued, belatedly recalling that he was supposed to be wooing her. He didn’t need his uncle’s advice to know that ordering her to marry him was not wooing. “We could.”

She shook her head, more as if to clear it than in contradiction.

“What else do you intend to do?” he asked, irritation surfacing again.

“I have plenty to do!”

“Living the nomadic life you described to me? Wandering from house to house like a society gypsy. Will you still be doing that when you’re forty? Fifty?”

She turned away from him. Benjamin hoped it was because he’d made a telling point. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

She sounded almost anguished. Which was better than indifferent, but far from what Benjamin desired. She’d been ardent and willing in his arms. Once out of them, she became someone else. He had to find a way to make her eager there, too. But would he have an opportunity to do so? She looked on the verge of running away again. Plans he’d made earlier in the day came back to him. “I need your help,” he said before she could speak again.

Blessedly, she turned back to him.

“Clayton wants to cut my hair,” Benjamin went on. “What do you think?”

Her dark eyes widened. She blinked at him in wordless astonishment.

“My uncle’s valet, you know. Clayton.”

“I know who he is.”

“My unfashionable locks fill him with despair. He’s after me to cut them.” Had he actually saidunfashionable locks? Benjamin gritted his teeth. Desire had scrambled his brain.

“You want my help in getting a haircut?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“You’re something of an expert on hair.” Clayton had made this point. It had sounded reasonable whenhesaid it. Benjamin couldn’t imagine why just now.

Miss Saunders put a hand to her luxuriant curls. She gazed at him as if she didn’t know whether to be offended or concerned.

“But that wasn’t it.” Why had he listened to such an idiotic idea? Clearly, she thought it was daft. As it was. He needed something far better. “What I wanted help with. That’s something else.”

“What then?”

What? He had to come up with something sensible. Quickly. And then, in a flash, Benjamin saw the answer. This would sway her. And the best part was, his request was perfectly sincere. “Finding Geoffrey a new attendant,” he said. He nodded, agreeing with himself. “He needs someone more responsible than Lily until he’s old enough to go to school. Of course, Tom is welcome to stay if he wishes.”

“You should do something for him,” she said.

“I intend to. But Geoffrey needs a proper nanny. And she will have to be a rather special person, I think.”

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