Heading toward the grassy paths where he’d walked with Lily last night, he sighed. He wouldn’t lose her. That was unthinkable. But for now, he had to concentrate on Margery. She needed him, too.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he began carefully.
“Alban?” To his shock, she practically snorted. “It was a relief to see him put into the ground.” She dashed the wetness from her eyes.
“Then…you’re not crying because of him?”
“Dear heavens, no.” She took a deep breath, looking better already. Some color was returning to her cheeks. “Alban was a cruel man. He was cruel even as a boy; surely you remember that.” She shuddered, perhaps remembering things that Rand would rather not know. “I never wanted to marry him.”
“Then why did you agree?”
“It was my father’s last wish. Not that that stopped me from begging to get out of it. But Uncle William would hear none of it.”
The marquess wasn’t really her uncle, but she’d called him that since babyhood. To Rand, it had always sounded too friendly a name for the man.
In a sheltered area between two rows of trees, she stopped. “Randy…”
When she hesitated, he turned to her and smiled. “No one calls me that anymore, you know.”
Her own smile was wan, but there. “Shall I call you Professor? Or, oh, how could I have forgotten? My lord earl.” She executed an absurd, formal curtsy.
“Rand will do,” he told her, glad to see the old Margery peeking through all the misery.
“Rand, then,” she repeated, growing serious again. “I shall try to remember, but you’ll have to remind me if I forget. Rand…I…are you aware that Uncle William expects me to marry you now?”
“He’s told me as much,” he answered, suddenly apprehensive.
She resumed walking, absently trailing one hand along a hedge as she went by. “Who was that woman with you?”
“Lady Lily Ashcroft, the Earl of Trentingham’s daughter.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
“I think so.” He watched her elegant fingers skim the leaves. Margery was beautiful, too, but in a fragile sort of way. She was taller than Lily and not as fine boned, but Margery would never allow dogs to slobber all over her. She wouldn’t climb fences or laugh at ribald songs, either. Margery could be flirtatious and saucy, but beneath it all, she was a very proper young woman.
Well, she’d been raised in the Marquess of Hawkridge’s household, Rand reminded himself. It was a wonder she had any spunk left in her at all.
She stopped again. “Why is Lady Lily here?”
“She…ah…well, when I received the summons from the marquess, it said only that—”
“Are you in love with her?”
He met her gaze. There was no sense in lying—the truth would surely be obvious anyway. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“Thank God.”
He blinked, nonplussed. “Pardon?”
“I don’t want to marry you, Randy. I mean, Rand.” A small smile curved her lips, then faded. “I didn’t want to marry your brother, and I don’t want to marry you. I love you like a sister. Not a wife.”
“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.”
“Oh, I imagine you’re just as relieved as I am to hear it from you.” Turning to walk back toward the house, she slanted him a sidelong glance. “Did you truly believe I love you that way?”
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure, and many wed for alliance, not love, and the marquess wanted—and Lily worried—”
He stopped, humiliated to find himself babbling.
When a student babbled, he accused the ninnyhammer of being unprepared. Which Rand was, at the moment. Woefully unprepared to deal with this—love, pressure from his family, responsibilities he’d never wanted nor thought would be his…all of it.
They reentered the formal gardens, the gravel crunching beneath their shoes. “Well,” he said in an attempt to lighten the mood for both of their sakes, “you cannot blame me for wondering if you might, after all, be besotted. I did, if you’ll remember, grace you with your first kiss.”
That earned a good-natured smirk. “I don’t remember ‘grace’ being an applicable description. And if I recall correctly, it was your first kiss as well. You seemed to be concerned about going off into the world an inexperienced man.” Her green eyes perhaps a bit more lively than before, she glanced over at him. “Have you gained any experience, Randal Nesbitt?”
“Oh, in the past fourteen years I’ve kissed a woman or two. And you?”
“Besides your odious brother at his insistence?” She looked as though the memory made her gag. But then her features softened. “I’m in love with Bennett Armstrong.”
“Bennett Armstrong?” He frowned, trying to remember. “Is he not a scrawny boy of ten?”
In spite of her despondency, a little chuckle bubbled up. “He was when you left. He’s four-and-twenty now. And not scrawny, I can assure you.”
Her dreamy gaze told Rand she had the same feelings for Bennett that he had for Lily. Or a shred of them, anyway. He had a hard time believing most people lived with these strong emotions.
He attempted to picture a grown-up Bennett Armstrong. “His father is a baron, yes?”
“Bennett is the baron now. His father died when the smallpox raged through the county. Three years ago, that was.”
That explained Etta’s new scars, and the ones he’d seen on other old family retainers. “You never wrote me about the smallpox.”
Margery shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
He hadn’t cared, not then. Guilt ate at his insides.
“Bennett is a wealthy baron,” she continued. “His father left him gold and estates. I’m certain my own rich but untitled father would have been pleased to see me happily wed to such a man, no matter that Bennett isn’t an earl like Alban. Like you,” she corrected herself. “Yet I argued with Uncle William until I was blue in the face, and he refused to let us marry.” As they drew closer to the house, Margery’s feet dragged. “And now there’s the complication…”
She seemed reticent to continue.
