Cocky Earl - Annabelle Anders Page 0,39

She’d also piled on gravy and potatoes and toast with jam.

He savored a slow drink of coffee, black of course, before addressing an important aspect of their… bargain.

“Ours won’t be a pretend courtship.” She wasn’t the sort of lady who’d appreciate effusive platitudes, so he stated his position baldly.

He would not have her imagining that he didn’t intend to honor his word.

She glanced up from her food and rolled her eyes. It struck him as odd, not for the first time, that he wasn’t more aggravated at having to marry a woman he’d not chosen for himself. Was it only because he’d been having increasing misgivings about marrying Felicity?

Miss Jackson carefully set her utensils alongside her plate and then sighed. “A courtship is entered into when two people are attracted to one another,” she explained as though speaking to a child.

Although half-irritated by her persistent obstinance, he was also relieved to see that some of the spark had returned to her eyes.

Damned Jackson. He ought to have given his daughter the courtesy of speaking with her in private before leaving the manor. Jules had known her for not quite a week and even he understood how disappointed she would be at being denied the opportunity to tour the distilleries.

“Courtships are entered into for all manner of reasons.” Jules leaned back in his chair. “With the same end result in mind.” As he watched for her response, he found himself anticipating arguing with her. Would her cheeks flush? Would her eyes appear dark and mysterious or bright and flashing? Or would she procure a flask from one of the voluminous sleeves of her dress and offer him a taste of whiskey?

At the last thought, he very nearly chuckled aloud. Because it was not out of the realm of possibility.

She was interesting—more than interesting—and he hadn’t been intrigued that way for any particular lady in a very long time.

Charley faced him full on now and he was satisfied to watch that delicate pink flush working its way up from the satiny skin above her bodice to her neck and into her cheeks. He couldn’t deny that he had become attracted to her. But how? She was too bold, too abrasive, too… American? But if he was going to be strictly honest with himself, he’d wished she hadn’t run from him before he could get a taste of those full pink lips. What would it be like to kiss a woman like her?

“I don’t want to marry.” She held his gaze and the pink darkened to a soft rose.

Jules pushed his coffee away and folded his hands together on the table. “You aren’t like other ladies your age.”

Her lashes swept down and her shoulders sagged, and he realized he’d said the wrong thing before she answered.

“I know. I can’t help it.”

“Being different isn’t a bad thing.” There were two sides to her. The bold and courageous one, and this one. Likely more than one. Would he find all of them as alluring?

“Oh, but it is. And it’s not as though other American ladies are all that different than your sisters, the Blackheart twins, or even Lady Felicity. But I’m not like them. I never will be. If I could have one wish, it would be for everyone to stop trying to make me into something I am not.”

“Besides your grandparents, who else wants to change you?” And then it dawned on him. “You mentioned you were ten and eight at the time your mother died. That cannot have been very long ago.”

“It’s been six years.” So, Charley was four and twenty, two years older than Bethany. There were moments that she seemed more naïve than Tabetha but then she’d occasionally say something that made her seem closer to his own age.

“Did you get on well with her?”

A series of emotions played across her face: joy, regret, sadness. “My mother was the most beautiful woman you ever would have seen. She had golden-blond hair, the prettiest blue eyes, and she was just as a woman ought to be. Slim. Petite. Delicate. And, as I’m certain you’ve noticed, I am none of those things.”

Jules waited before disagreeing with her. Miss Jackson wasn’t slim or petite, but she was lovely in her own right. She was at least six inches shorter than him and when he touched her arm, or the small of her back, he always had a sensation that she was delicate. He couldn’t keep his gaze from traveling down her slim neck to