A different proposition altogether.
He’d ridden out with Richard, hoping the fresh air and exercise would wipe the turmoil from his brain, but no luck. Breckenridge strode out of the manor’s stables and headed across the cobbled rear yard, then remembered and detoured toward the herb garden.
Halting in the shade of the manor’s walls, he scanned the sloping garden. He spotted Heather immediately, cutting swags of some herb with a pair of shears. Surveying the rest of the garden more closely, he thanked his stars; Algaria wasn’t there.
He started down the winding path. Heather was facing the other way; she hadn’t seen him yet.
Regardless of her intransigence, he wasn’t about to walk away. And much as he might like to dismiss her insistence on some “assurance” as feminine pigheadedness, that would get him nowhere.
So she’d stated, yet that was the point that had him stumped.
She must know that a declaration of love from him — the foremost rake in the ton — simply wasn’t in the cards. Even discounting his experience with La Maitland, which admittedly Heather knew nothing of, his all-but- constant dalliances with the married ladies of the ton — something she did know about — had left him with a very definite notion regarding the value of love.
Namely that one should place no faith in it at all.
To him the word love had no real meaning.
Or if it did, it wasn’t anything good, fine, and desirable.
No lady of the ton would believe a verbal promise of undying love from a gentleman of his reputation.
Besides, she’d been there, with him, every gasp of the way last night. She was intelligent and observant; she couldn’t possibly have missed the essential truth he’d revealed, so she had to be clear on that much, at least. She had to know the depths of his feelings for her, had to comprehend the true nature of his commitment. He’d exposed his heart in no uncertain fashion; she had to have seen and understood.
She’d done her own share of exposing and revealing, too. If he’d noticed, observed, and interpreted what she’d done, how she’d behaved, as a reflection of the truth of how she felt about him, then there was no chance whatever that she’d been blind and hadn’t seen his reciprocation for the wordless declaration it had been. Women were far more attuned to such nuances, and actions definitely spoke louder than words in that arena.
That issue, that side of things, was done with. Taken care of.
So what else did he have to reassure her of?
He assumed that was an allusion to his reputation, but in what way, from what perspective, in reference to what, he had no clue.
Ladies like Heather Cynster should come with translation cards.
He had to get her to agree to their wedding, ergo he had to find some way of reassuring her in whatever way she deemed necessary.
Which meant he first had to ferret out what she wanted to hear.
She heard his footsteps as he neared, glanced his way, then turned, long sprigs of feathery growth in one hand, sharp shears in the other.
He halted two paces away.
She met his gaze, arched her brows.
He hesitated, then shifted to sit on the low stone wall edging the raised bed from which she was snipping.
Heather turned back to the wormwood she was harvesting. “I presume you didn’t come here just to sit in the sunshine.”
“No, but the prospect does have a certain allure.”
Her lips started to twitch; she straightened them. “Don’t try to charm me — it won’t work.”
He sighed, a touch histrionically.
She clipped another frond. She wasn’t going to make this any easier for him—
“Earlier, last time we talked out here, we touched on most of the usual elements that are factors in a decision to wed.”
His voice was smooth, the tones relaxed, as if he discussed such matters every day.
“Station, wealth, estate, children. The role I play now, and the one I’ll eventually inherit as Brunswick’s heir, and the role you would play by my side. In addition to that, of course, there’ll be the accompanying social round commensurate with being my viscountess. During those times we reside in London, there’ll be plenty of opportunity for you to socially shine. Assuming you wish to.”
She glanced at him, let her puzzlement show. “Why do you imagine that’s important to me?”
He didn’t frown, but she detected a certain darkness in his eyes. “I thought that might be something you’d want to do.”
She sent him an exasperated look and turned back to her clipping.
After a brief pause, he went on, “You’ll have to redecorate the house — houses, come to think of it. The London house as well as Baraclough. My mother died over a decade ago, and Constance and Cordelia have had their own establishments for even longer — both places are in dire need of a woman’s touch. You’ll have free rein —”
She made an exasperated, frustrated sound and whirled on him. “Why are you telling me this?”
His frown materialized — blackly. “I’m trying to tell you whatever it is you want to hear.” When she glared at him, he capped that with a distinctly terse, “Am I getting close?”
“No!”
He stood; she swung to face him. His jaw looked like iron; a tic flickered beneath one eye as he loomed intimidatingly and glowered down at her. “What the devil is it you want me to say?” He flung out his arms. “For God’s sake! Tell me and I’ll say it.”
That was what she was afraid of.
Her temper rising, provoked by his, she pressed her lips tight, kept her eyes locked with his, and tried to ignore the yawning emptiness inside.
He was telling her all the things she didn’t need to hear, and nothing of the one thing she did. She was increasingly afraid she’d made a tactical error the previous night; clearly he’d interpreted her wordless declaration correctly — and now that he knew she loved him, he thought everything was settled. .
It would have been if he hadn’t been what he was — such an expert that, on reflection, on deeper thought, there was no earthly way she could be sure that his side of their night’s exchange hadn’t been anything other than, as he’d just stated, him giving her — telling her — what he’d thought she’d wanted to hear.
Now he thought she would marry him with no more said.
Holding his gaze wasn’t easy, not when, with him this close, every sense she possessed was reminding her of what had passed between them in the night.
“If you don’t know—”
“I don’t.”
“—then”—she glared belligerently up at him—“telling you won’t fix it.”
His eyes narrowed to agate shards. “If you refuse to tell me what you want, how can I give it to you?”
“It’s not what I want, it’s what I need.”
“Which is?”
His heart, the fool. She needed his heart.
They were all but nose to nose. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to say, “I told you that in order to marry I required true. . affection.” She had to grit her teeth to get the lesser word out, but there was no point badgering him to say he loved her — he just might oblige, but all that would do now was assure her he didn’t mean it.
That he was only saying it because he’d decided that them marrying was absolutely imperative for both their reputations. . would he have behaved as he had last night, then demand this morning that she name the wedding day if that was his goal? She didn’t need to think to know the answer was yes.
That he might, if pressed hard enough, even utter the word love, just to get her to agree to marry him.
The more she pushed, the less likely this would work out well. But she had to try. “And I wanted that depth
