person. Did he? He very much feared she might have a point. She wanted him to see her for what she really was—or perhaps that should be who she really was, quite independent of all the attributes that made her one of the most eligible ladies in England.
He had been taken aback by her outburst. She had been seriously upset with him. Not so much with his presumption in informing her that he intended to marry her as with the fact that it was not she he wished to marry, but rather the titled, wealthy Lady Jessica Archer, sister of the Duke of Netherby. Just as though they were two quite separate entities.
Were they?
Strangely, stupidly, the possible truth of that had not struck him until she said it. He had assumed that the Lady Jessica he saw was the whole person, that there was no more to her than the appearance she presented to the world, of beauty, elegance, poise, arrogance, and entitlement. She would perfectly suit his purpose, he had decided almost the first moment he saw her. Even her beauty would suit him. One of his first duties as Earl of Lyndale, after all, would be to produce sons. She would be an attractive bedfellow, he had thought, if perhaps a trifle cold.
Which of them, then, had been the arrogant one?
He had been taught by Cyrus and his own instincts to identify what he wanted and to go after it. He had been taught to expect success so that he could the more easily achieve it. What if those admirable traits in a businessman did not apply to a lover?
They almost certainly did not.
Gabriel drummed his fingers on the windowsill and called himself all sorts of an idiot.
Her outburst had dispelled any notion he had had that she was cold to the core. And it had done strange things to his resolve. It had not lessened it as it ought to. He had found himself wanting to waste time and energy romancing her, with no assurance of success. His fingers stopped drumming as he frowned in thought. I am not at all certain I want to marry you. Indeed, I am almost certain I do not. Those, he believed, had been her exact words. Would his time and effort be all for nothing, then? Was he willing to pin all his hopes upon that one little word—almost? She was almost certain. And what the devil did romancing a woman entail?
It is about the possibility of love, she had said when he had pressed her on the point. The possibility of friendship and laughter and . . . oh, and something more. Something bright and beautiful. Something that will transform life and fill it with color and . . .
She had been talking about love. Romantic love, though she would not admit it.
The Lady Jessica Archer he had thought he knew, because really there was not a great deal to know, had been transformed before his eyes into someone of mysterious depths. And he had promised that he would indeed consider the possibility she had spoken of. Very well, Lady Jessica. I will romance you. Not with a view to matrimony, but as an end in itself, to see where it leads.
Was he mad?
Would he keep that promise? Madness was something he did not indulge in. Madness cost time. And efficiency. And money. Time, in particular, was not something he could afford to waste in this instance. He needed a bride so that he could move on to the next stage of his homecoming.
Nevertheless he had sent her a rose this morning, wondering as he did so what she would make of it. Did she receive many gifts of a single rose? Would she be offended at the paltriness of it? Or would she be amused, as he hoped she would be, at the contrast with that ostentatious bouquet that she had seemed to find a bit objectionable? Would she make the connection?
Would she like it? Was pink her color? But she had worn it to the Parley ball.
He turned impatiently from the window. If he went now to call at Archer House, even assuming she was there, he would probably find himself having to make labored conversation with her mother and her sister-in-law and possibly Netherby himself. And perhaps other visitors too, members of her court, of which he would appear to be the newest addition. Perish the thought. He would not do it. Instead he snatched up