that made her take notice. Even when she did not want to be looking.
“Are you in distress, Miss Ellingham?” the marquess asked in a gentle tone. “Can I be of assistance?”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I’m perfectly fine.”
The lift of his brow told her of his skepticism at her response, but thankfully he did not press her. There was a strained silence, broken only by her harsh, labored breaths. Mortified, Dorothea attempted to stifle the noise, which made matters worse.
“I was unaware that Mr. Pengrove was in attendance this evening,” Lord Atwood commented.
“He is here?” Dorothea gazed wildly about the garden.
“Wasn’t that him in the lower garden with you?”
“No, that was Lord Rosen.” Dorothea, still feeling terribly rattled, replied without thinking. Then nearly groaned at her answer.
“Lord Rosen?” Ill-concealed surprise shadowed the marquess’s moonlit features. “I thought you had an understanding with Mr. Pengrove.”
“An understanding of what?”
“Marriage.”
“Mr. Pengrove and I are merely friends. We have no plans to marry.”
She nearly laughed at Lord Atwood’s blank look of amazement and might have, if she had not been so stunned herself.
“Forgive my mistake,” he said, eyeing her with puzzlement. “Then you will gladly accept the title of Lady Rosen?”
“No.” Dorothea looked away, then sighed. “I must say, my lord, you appear to have far too keen an interest in my marital status.”
“Do I? I beg your pardon. Marriage is too much on my mind these days.”
“On mine, too, I confess.” Her heart skipped. Was Lord Atwood in the market for a bride?
“Did you not mean to say love and marriage are too much on your mind?” he asked, his voice lilting with humor.
“Love and marriage?” Dorothea took a moment to consider her reply. “Marriage is an act of combining family, fortune, and convenience.”
“It is, but I thought most young women strive to fall in love before they marry.”
“Do they? I’m not certain. I only know I wish very much to marry, and love is not a major factor under my consideration when searching for a husband.”
His mouth curled. “You surprise me, Miss Ellingham. I would have wagered anything that you were a starry- eyed romantic.”
Dorothea gave him a faint smile. “I have grown beyond that stage. I know that genuine love can exist between couples, but it is rare to find and even harder to hold.”
“I can agree with that sentiment.”
“From personal experience?”
He winced. “Heavens, no. I myself have never been in love. But I have borne witness to couples who profess themselves madly in love when they marry and within the year their relationship has fallen to apathy or boredom or worse.”
“I too have seen the same.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “That is why I am resolved to control my own fate when I marry and leave love out of the decision.”
He cocked his head to one side and studied her. “Are they mutually exclusive?” he asked. “Love and marriage?”
“For some. For too many.” She couldn’t help but smile. This was the most unusual conversation she had ever had with a man, but the most honest. “I think in the very best circumstances, love comes after marriage.”
“Between a man and his wife?”
“Sometimes. If they are very fortunate.” She studied her dancing slippers with a great intensity, then suddenly lifted her head. “And if not, then the world will not end. One can learn to be content with whatever parts another person is willing to share.”
He tilted his head curiously. “Does that not make for a very cold marriage bed?”
“I know very little of either love or passion yet I cannot fathom that love is necessary in order to achieve fulfillment when sharing a bed with your spouse. Is it?”
Her question seemed to surprise him. “Not from a man’s point of view. Yet I always believed a gently bred lady would feel differently.”
“Yes, some might.” Dorothea could not hold her tongue. “I am not one of them.”
His face registered shock, but that quickly turned to curiosity. “You are not horrified at the notion of being labeled a wanton?”
“Ah, so a woman is wanton if she enjoys the pleasures of the flesh and the joys of her marriage bed without a full commitment of her heart, and a man is not?”
That comment had him nearly gaping with astonishment.
Dorothea faltered, realizing she had spoken far too boldly and honestly and quite possibly offended him with her outrageous comments.
His features softened as his eyes glinted with keen interest. “So, you will offer passion instead of love to your future husband, Miss Ellingham?”
She gave him a sharp, direct look. “I will offer both, my lord, in equal measure. But I will make my choice of that husband based on passion.”
Her final remark rendered him speechless. Dorothea shifted from one foot to the other, becoming suddenly uncomfortable. There was no room for that sort of bare truth in a polite conversation between a man and a woman, at least not that degree of truth. She knew that, and yet something about Lord Atwood had compelled her to ignore her inner voice and say it anyway.
“Goodness, ’tis getting late,” she said in a constrained voice. “You must excuse me, Lord Atwood. It would be rude to remain so long away from the ball.”
He gave her a small, mysterious smile. “Of course, Miss Ellingham. I thank you for a most enlightening conversation.”
Dorothea’s heart began to pound and she quickly glanced away. She executed a low, graceful curtsy, then turned and walked away, her head held high.
Carter’s eyes narrowed as he watched Miss Ellingham stalk away, her skirt billowing out in her haste to leave. As she disappeared through the French doors, he was struck by a sharp feeling of being intrigued. By her beauty, of course, her lovely figure, her witty personality.
But also by her woman’s mind, something he rarely considered until that moment. She saw marriage in a very different way, and not, he greatly suspected, as other females did.
He had seen Arthur Pengrove kiss her and then sink down on one knee to propose. Therefore, when he again saw her kissing someone in the garden tonight, he assumed it was Pengrove, yet instead it was Lord Rosen, a reprobate and a womanizer, though a man astute enough to realize it would be suicide to play false with the affections of a woman under the protection of the Marquess of Dardington.
As difficult as it was to believe, Lord Rosen’s intentions must have been honorable. Yet she was not engaged to him either. Perhaps she just enjoyed kissing gentlemen?
It would be easy to label her a woman of loose morals, but somehow that did not ring true. She claimed no knowledge of either love or passion, and he believed her. She spoke of wanting to find the passion in her marriage before the love, a notion more aligned with a man’s thinking than a woman’s.
Her words made him think, made him realize that perhaps all those young, innocent females his father insisted he consider for his bride had caused Carter’s view of marriage to be too narrow and rigid. One could marry for duty alone, using common sense when selecting a mate. Or one could succumb to the sort of all-consuming romantic love that poets wrote about and women craved. Well, some women.
Frankly, neither of those approaches held much appeal, which most likely explained why he was having such
