mingled with something else more primal that seemed to cause a hollow ache in her stomach.
“You’re a lady,” Lowell went on. “You know nothing of rising at five in the morning, winter as well as summer, to light the fires and clean the house and milk the cows and make the cheese. You know
“Very well, then,” Flora said. “I am not going to beg.” She certainly was not going to stay to hear any more. She had evidently made a grave miscalculation in thinking that Lowell would want to marry her for her money if for nothing else. No one she knew had ever turned down a fortune of fifty thousand pounds. It was extraordinary.
She walked toward the door, but when she got there she stopped and turned back. Lowell was watching her, his face quite expressionless, his jaw set hard.
“You asked why I chose you,” Flora said. “I chose you because I thought you were lonely.” She gestured toward the box where the dogs lay curled around each other now, snoring peacefully. “What self-respecting farmer allows his working dogs to sleep in the house?” she said. “You must need the company.” She put her hand on the latch, preparing to leave.
“They are a damn sight less trouble than taking a lady to wife,” Lowell said.
Flora turned back and looked at him. He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair again, then pushed a chair out from the table with his foot. Flora accepted the unspoken invitation to sit and Lowell poured her a beaker of ale, taking the seat next to her. After a moment she tried the ale. It tasted vile. She almost spat it out.
“I don’t make fruit juices,” Lowell said, “elderflower and blackcurrant and the like. My mother did.” He looked at Flora. “Perhaps she could give you some hints. Or perhaps not.” He sighed. “She has just taken the journey you want to do in reverse. She’s a lady now, thanks to my sister’s money and her grand marriage. She would never in a thousand years understand why a lady would want to be a farmer’s wife.”
“I’m not a lady,” Flora said. “My father made his money in trade and my grandfather was a walking-stick maker. Ladies look down on me.”
Lowell laughed. “Now that I do understand.” He sobered. “Even so, you have never had to work for a living.”
“It’s true that I have never had to work,” Flora said, “but I am willing to try.” Her heart was pounding, absolutely thundering in her ears, at the thought that Lowell might even be considering her proposition. It made her wonder whether she had assumed he would reject her and so she had never really been prepared for the shock of his acceptance.
Lowell took her hand and turned it over, his work-roughened fingers abrasive against the softness of her palm. “I can see that you’ve never worked,” he said as his fingers traced gentle circles over her skin.
Flora had a sudden overwhelming image of what his hands would feel like on the rest of her soft, pampered body and almost fainted. She took a gulp of ale to steady herself. It tasted slightly less vile this time.
“Is there someone else that you would rather wed?” she blurted out. “Lizzie Scarlet used to flirt with you, though she is married now. Today,” she added, in some surprise, for she had only just remembered that Lady Elizabeth and Nat Waterhouse had wed that very morning in the private chapel at Scarlet Park.
“Lizzie flirted with everyone,” Lowell said. “It meant nothing.” His tight expression eased a little. “I thought that might have been why you came to find me tonight,” he added. He glanced at her with his blue, blue eyes and Flora felt the cool shivers ripple over her skin again. Outside there was a sudden flash of lightning, livid against the hills. The crockery on the dresser rattled at the crash of thunder and the dogs woke up and barked until Lowell hushed them.
“Why…? What?” Flora had jumped, too, at the cacophony of noise. She felt confused. “What did you think I came here for?”
“For consolation,” Lowell said. He was still holding her hand. “Because Nat Waterhouse is married.”
“Oh,” Flora said, looking at their linked hands. “No.”
“Just no?” Lowell sounded amused. His thumb was rubbing gently over Flora’s palm in distracting strokes.
“I…um…” Flora blinked. A hot, heavy feeling was beating through her blood. “I like Lord Waterhouse,” she said, “but I didn’t choose to marry him the way I chose you.”
There was a moment’s stillness broken by another huge crash of thunder and a sudden engulfing downpour of rain, hammering on the roof of the farmhouse. Flora met Lowell’s eyes and saw that the amusement was still there, but behind it was something bright and intense and breathtaking. Flora found she was shaking. She withdrew her hand from Lowell’s rather quickly and took refuge in the beaker of ale.
“I am glad,” Lowell said. “It made me angry to think that you only sought me out for comfort.”
“I told you,” Flora said, “I want to marry you so that I don’t have to give Tom Fortune half my fifty thousand pounds.”
“Oh, yes.” Lowell was smiling. He stretched, muscles rippling, hands behind his head. “I remember.”
For some reason the panic that had filled Flora earlier now came back with a vengeance and she jumped to her feet. “I must go,” she said. “It is late and my parents think me abed and I cannot afford to be seen out alone at night.”
“You cannot go yet,” Lowell said. “You will be soaked before you go five paces. Wait until the rain stops,” he added, “and I will escort you back.”
“You can’t,” Flora said. “If someone saw us together-”
Lowell stood up. He was so close to her, his presence so strong and powerful, that Flora tried to take a step back and bumped into the dresser.
“You are not walking back on your own at night,” he said. He cupped her face between his hands. There was an expression in his eyes of tenderness and exasperation and it made Flora go weak at the knees.
“You could marry anyone you wanted,” Lowell whispered. “You are beautiful and rich and sweet and brave…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Why me, Flora?”
Flora braced herself against the dresser and looked up into his face. No more prevarication, she thought, no more pride, no more excuses.
“When you found me that day,” she said, “the day I canceled my wedding, I felt as though I had been given a second chance. Up until then I had not really lived. Oh, I had gone to balls and parties and gone shopping and paid visits and given the servants orders and done a hundred and one things that
“And then I saw you,” she said. “The day that I was given a second chance.” She cleared her throat. “I had seen you before, of course, at the assemblies and in the village, but I thought…” She paused. She could hear her voice trembling and she knew she had humbled her pride and the rest of her words came out in a rush before she lost her nerve. “I thought you had so much life and vitality and passion and I wanted that. I wanted that passion so much I was prepared to come here today to pretend to buy you with my fifty thousand pounds-” She stopped. One look at Lowell’s face told her there was no point in continuing. And the strange thing was that she knew it was not because he pitied her, as he had claimed when she had first arrived. He wanted her. She could see it in his face and feel it, even though he was not touching her. But…
“I’m sorry, Flora,” he said, and his eyes were full of pain. “I cannot marry you. You think that you would be able to adapt to life as a farmer’s wife but you have no real idea of what that means. I know you would not be happy. It would be too different and in the end it would tear you-and us-apart.”
Flora drew back. She felt sick and tired to have tried and failed, but more than anything, she felt disappointed.
“At least I was willing to try,” she said huskily. “I was wrong about you, Lowell Lister. I thought that you had courage as well as passion, but in the end you were not even prepared to take a risk.”
And she turned away and walked out of the house and into the storm without a backward glance.
LIZZIE SAT BY THE WINDOW and looked out at the rain-swept street. It was late and the village was deserted, as silent as the grave. Lizzie had never lived in Fortune’s Folly itself and she had thought at first that she
