Heiress in Red Silk (Duke's Heiress #2) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,48
open the garden door.
A table had been set at the far end of the terrace, away from the morning room. He did not want his father’s interference should the man rise before noon. He settled her down. A servant came to pour coffee.
He looked at her face. The overcast light evoked a special radiance from her skin, as if it penetrated deeply, then came back with subtle nuance. The result was a surface that appeared very white, with the vaguest shadows below her mouth and nose. Unpolished marble statues looked like that, with the material’s crystals absorbing light instead of reflecting it.
Her hand went to the bruise. “I was given some paint to hide it. I don’t suppose it worked if you keep staring at me.”
“I was not noticing the bruise. I know it is there, but few others will.”
“Then why are you looking at me so intently?”
“Because I have something very important to say to you, and I am wondering what you will think on hearing it.”
Curiosity lit her eyes. “Have you decided you want to take on another partner?”
“Not at all. Why would you think so?”
She shrugged. “It has entered my mind that we could use one who has a factory.”
What a nuisance of an idea. He swallowed his annoyance. That was for another day. “I have instead thought that we should reconsider our own partnership.”
She looked at him blankly. So much so that it unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. The practical Miss Jameson had never seen the possibility that he had. She had never entertained the idea that he planned to broach.
Not once.
* * *
Mr. Radnor sat there, looking at her. She sensed surprise in him, but she could not imagine why.
She hoped he was not going to ask her to sign that stupid document again, the one that gave him all control of the enterprise. If he did, she would sell her share, even if they had now developed a friendship of sorts.
He was nothing if not a self-assured man, but right now she saw something else. Not lack of confidence in himself so much as in his idea.
“Perhaps you should explain what you have in mind,” she said to encourage him to get on with it.
“Of course.” He leaned forward. Closer. “When I say reconsider our partnership, I mean extend it.”
“You have another enterprise?”
He smiled ruefully. In a blink, he became more himself. “See here, we are bound to each other in this endeavor. Our lives are intertwined.”
“Only if I don’t sell,” she reminded him.
A small glint of steel entered his eyes. Oh yes, very much himself again.
“It seems to me that because we are so bound, we should take the next step.”
“The next step—?”
“Yes. I think we should wed.”
She heard the words, but the meaning of them took a moment to reach her mind. She stared at him while he looked back at her.
“It makes perfect sense if you think about it,” he added.
Good heavens, he was serious.
She swallowed the nervous laughter that wanted to erupt. Whoever would have expected such a proposal? From this man of all men? And in such a manner? He might have been proposing a walk in the park, or something equally uneventful. He put this stunning suggestion on the table as casually as he set down his coffee cup.
“If this is because of last night, there is no need to propose marriage,” she said.
“It is not to make amends for Philip, or for our brief embrace, although—” His gaze turned more intent in that way that discomforted her. “Our embrace was not purely one of comfort. Not entirely. Surely my suggestion does not come as a complete surprise to you.”
She groped through her confusion to find some way to answer him. “The embrace was not a total surprise. This proposal is. Such as you don’t marry such as me.” That truth cleared her thinking. “They kiss such as me. But marriage? No.”
“Yet I have proposed just that.”
She did not know what to say. She could hardly explain that she had a dream, and it was not a life with him, no matter how interesting and compelling she found him at times. She wanted to see Charles again, and try to let that old love find its voice and future.
Other reasons not to agree flew through her mind. He had said he never became enthralled with women. His lack of such emotions hardly recommended him to a woman, no matter how convenient the match might be.