then held out a hand, beckoning. “Come here.”
She considered, then did. They had to talk; she had to learn…whatever it was he wanted to tell her.
He took her hand, with his other hand plucked the towel from her slack grasp and tossed it to lie with his. Then he drew her to him, reached for her waist, turned her, swiveled and shifted back, drawing her down to the daybed, settling her between his thighs while he lay with his shoulders propped against the raised back.
Her back to his chest, she couldn’t see his face; he was a hot, solid, muscular cushion behind her, his legs lying alongside hers.
She relaxed against him, into his embrace as his arms closed around her; he nuzzled her temple, brushing her hair aside with his chin to place a gentle kiss there.
Closing her eyes, she savored the closeness for one long moment, then asked, “Until when are you planning to remain in the country?” The most important, vital question, one she could no longer not ask.
He didn’t immediately reply, but then said, his voice even, “Forever.”
She frowned. She knew him well enough to gauge the nuance in his voice. He meant forever, literally. Opening her eyes, she started to turn, to look into his face.
His arms tightened, keeping her still. Then he sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you.” A moment passed, then he went on, “It would help, a lot, if you remain as you are and listen, and say nothing-do nothing-until I tell you the whole.”
She stayed silent and still within his arms. Wondering…suddenly worried.
He drew breath, then said, “I already know who I want for my wife.”
Her heart constricted, a sharp pain. She moved, unable to stay still.
He tightened his hold. “Just listen.”
There was an urgency in his voice, a taut tension that surprised her, made her listen even though she didn’t want to hear.
“I didn’t know who she was when I returned to fix the mill. But my sisters, and Sybil, too, forced me to look at her-really look. And when I did, I saw…” He paused, then went on, his words falling by her ear, earnest and intent; he wanted her to understand. “I already knew my criteria-the things I wanted in my bride. Age, birth and station, temperament, compatibility and beauty-that was my list. The lady in question obviously satisfied all those criteria except that I didn’t know her well, so couldn’t tell if we’d be compatible.”
He drew breath. “So I set out to discover if we were.” He paused; she suddenly felt cold, suddenly felt an inner quiver. She couldn’t think. Then more softly he asked, “Do you remember when I told you what our first kiss was about-what I said? But before we got to that, you’d already told me in no uncertain terms that you would never believe, refused to believe, that I would want you for my wife.”
A shiver materialized. She ignored it, frowned. “Me?” He shifted, and she wriggled and turned. Stared at his face as he flicked out the silk shawl that had been lying on the daybed’s back and spread it around her shoulders. She gripped it, clutched it, staring, stunned, at him. “You want to marry me?”
He met her eyes and quietly stated, “All along I wanted to marry you.”
He paused, then went on, “If you remember, I told you I wanted you warming my bed.” He pointed toward the castle. “My bed-the one in the earl’s chambers, the one only my countess will ever grace. That’s where I wanted you-that’s what I meant.”
She still couldn’t take it in. “You meant to marry me-virtually from the first.”
“After that first kiss, yes.”
“But…” Confused, she gestured around them, pushed back her hair. “What was all this about, then? The game we’ve been playing? My seduction?”
His lips twisted, a wry grimace. “You told me why you didn’t believe-no, why you knew I would never seriously consider marrying you, why you believed I never would. You listed your reasons, remember. You had four-that I wasn’t honestly attracted to you, not physically, that you were too old, that you weren’t the sort of lady society would accept as my countess and that we would never get along, the two of us, not in the sense of living together, because we’re too alike.”
She stared at him, her eyes slowly narrowing as she connected actions with his words…she suddenly understood why he was being so careful, why he was tense. “You’ve been attacking my reasons. One by one.”
His lips thinned. “Undermining them. You didn’t give me much choice. I came home from London frustrated beyond bearing-and then I found you, and realized you were the one I wanted, the one I’d been going to London to search for. You were here, under my nose all along, and all I’d had to do was open my eyes. Once I had…I wasn’t about to accept your dismissal and meekly go away.”
She snorted. “You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘meek.’”
“True.” The tight smile he flashed her was more warning than reassurance. “So I set out to prove to you that I honestly desire you-you can’t possibly question that anymore. And you must by now realize that no one else sees either your age or your nature as in any way disqualifying you for the position of my countess. All our neighbors, all of local society would see a marriage between us as an excellent match.”
“Oh, my God!” Her eyes widened, her lips parted in shock. Then she glared at him. “Who else knows? You said your sisters and Sybil-who else?”
He wasn’t surprised by her reaction, that much was clear from his grimace and ready answer. “Not the whole neighborhood-it’s not exactly something I would shout from the steeple.”
“Thank Heaven for that. So who?”
He sighed. “My sisters and Sybil-as I said, they pointed me in your direction and insisted I look, so they were aware from the outset of my interest.”
She remembered his sisters at the festival, all they’d said. “Dear Heaven! Your sisters are worse than you.”
“Very likely-a point you might want to bear in mind.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “No others?”
He pressed his lips together, then said, “Muriel’s guessed, I think. And your brothers.”
“My brothers?”
He nodded. “Harry spoke to me-entirely correctly. They’d noticed my interest, even if you hadn’t.”
She stared at him, stunned again. “Good God.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
For a long moment, she simply sat there, naked on the daybed, clutching the shawl about her shoulders, facing him, completely naked, her hips and legs wedged in the space between his knees, and tried, frantically, to get her mind to take in all he’d said, and readjust her world.
In the end, she blinked, focused on his eyes, and asked, “What now?”
“Now?” His jaw set. “Now we go on until you’re convinced we can get along on a daily basis, and then you agree to marry me and we arrange a wedding-and then I get to have you warming my bed.” Taking her free hand, he urged her up. “And if we’re to get you home before dawn, we’ll need to get dressed.”
She glanced at the windows, at the faint lightening of the sky; he was right. Standing, she found her head whirling. “Wait.” Letting the shawl fall to the daybed, she clutched his arm. “You’re rushing ahead too fast.”
Releasing him, she went to the chair and tugged her chemise from the jumbled pile of her clothes. She struggled into it, then turned to see him looking down, buttoning his trousers. “Just because we’ve been lovers I’m not going to meekly say yes and marry you.”
He looked up at her. “You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘meek.’”
She grimaced, and reached for her drawers. “As I said, we’re much alike. And that doesn’t necessarily augur well for domestic peace.”
“It does, however, mean we’ll usually understand each other.”
Stepping into her silk drawers and pulling them up, she gave her attention to settling and tying the drawstring at her waist. If she’d stood on painful ground before, at least she’d been confident she knew the landscape. Now he’d shifted everything, and she no longer felt confident of anything at all.
She shot him a dark glance. “I notice you haven’t said that because we’ve been intimate I have to marry you to preserve my reputation.”
“Indeed-do, please, notice that.” He cast her an equally sharp glance, then started tying his neckerchief. “If I thought such a ploy had a hope in hell of succeeding, I’d be pushing the argument for all it’s worth. Explaining the facts of life to Harry-”
When she gasped, he shot her an irritated look. “But as I know you’ll only dig in your heels harder if I take that
