“There are few, if any, who are richer.” Mirabelle gave her a speculative look. “You’ve spent a great deal of time with him as of late.”
“Well, you’ve spent all your time with mother and Lizzy and Mrs. Summers. I had to find someone willing to spare a few moments for me—”
“You don’t truly expect me to believe that argument, do you?” Mirabelle cut in with a small laugh.
“No, but I’ve had it prepared for several days. Seemed an awful waste not to use it.”
Mirabelle made a prompting motion with her hand. “Well, now that you have…”
Kate shrugged, but the casual gesture belied a sudden case of nerves. It wasn’t every day a woman realized she was in love. Nor was it every day that a woman lost control of her horse, was rescued by the man she loved, gave her virginity to that man—while they were out-of-doors, no less—and then found herself sitting in bed considering the possibility of explaining her very eventful day—less the giving of her virginity, of course—to her sister-in-law.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, I have spent time with him, and…and I have enjoyed that time very much. I’ve come to know him well, I think.” She laughed a little. “Do you know, before I came to know him, I thought him much too charming, and polished, and entirely too prone to looming.”
“Looming?”
Kate nodded. “But now I think he’s just the right sort of charming, and polished, and…and I’ve no idea how to make looming into an adjective. Loomy? Loomisome?” She waved the matter away. “He looms splendidly, at any rate, and I’ve…grown rather attached to him. Perhaps strongly attached to him. Perhaps more.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She bit her lip, hesitated a moment, then gathered her courage and nodded. “I am.”
“You’re certain?”
“Of course I’m certain.” What sort of question was that? “He’s everything I had hoped to find. And nothing at all I had expected.”
“I don’t think any woman expects to find a loomisome man,” Mirabelle commented with a smile.
Kate knew that smile. It meant she was being humored a little. “You believe I’m being fanciful.”
“Oh, I know you’re being fanciful,” Mirabelle laughed. “That’s not what worries me.”
“Why should you be worried at all?”
“Because…” Mirabelle frowned thoughtfully, as if searching for the right words. “Because I don’t want you to be disappointed. I don’t want you to wish for more than you might receive.”
“Wishing only for what one expects to receive isn’t wishing at all,” Kate countered. “It’s…it’s…”
“Expecting?” Mirabelle offered.
“Yes, exactly. And where’s the fun to be had in that?”
Mirabelle sighed. “I could make a very long list of all the ways one can enjoy expectation, but I suspect it would only fall on deaf ears.”
“Under other circumstances they might very well,” Kate admitted. “But if you know something about Hunter that I do not, I’ll listen with both ears.”
“I hardly know the man at all, really,” Mirabelle replied with a shake of her head. “He just seems to me to be…guarded.”
“He is, rather.”
Mirabelle hesitated, then reached forward to take Kate’s hand. “I love you, Kate, dearly.”
Kate winced a little. “I’m not going to like what you say next, am I?”
“It’s not so very terrible.” Mirabelle squeezed her hand gently. “You’re not guarded, Kate. You…you’re…” She squeezed her hand again.
“Spit it out, Mira.”
“You’re vulnerable.”
Kate snatched her hand away. “That’s a perfectly awful thing to say.”
“Please don’t misunderstand,” Mirabelle pled. “You’re not weak, or helpless, not in the least. You’re simply romantic. Sweet and fanciful and…open. It’s part of what I love about you. Your eagerness to love. But that eagerness, I fear, leaves you exposed. Leaves your heart exposed…to men like Lord Martin.”
As much as she disliked admitting it, Kate knew there was some truth to what Mirabelle said. She had been enamored with the idea of falling in love since she’d been a small girl. She’d dreamed of her prince for longer than she’d dreamed of hearing her symphony performed in a theater. And she had, at one time, allowed herself to be blinded to reality by her dreams. But her infatuation with Lord Martin had been just that—an infatuation. She’d fancied herself in love, but in comparing what she had felt then, to what she felt for Hunter now…well, there was no comparison.
“I never loved Lord Martin,” she told Mirabelle. “Not really.”
“No, but you wanted to, very much. Are you certain, absolutely certain you’re not…eager to love Mr. Hunter as you were Lord Martin?”