“Fissies! Fissies!” Danielli protested, fighting Isabel’s hold on her.
Chuckling, Ashby rolled up his sleeves. He lay on his stomach, stretched out on the ground with his head facing the pond, and dipped his hand in the water. “Let’s tickle the gold-fishies.”
Danielli pealed with laughter. Isabel laid her next to Ashby and watched the little girl aping his every move. Something achingly sweet and wistful stirred in her heart. It was not longing. She wasn’t panting after him anymore. It simply heartened her to see Will’s friend playing with their niece—as Will ought to have been doing. She sat back on her heels and laughed as man and babe splashed water to every direction, petrifying the goldfish.
This was the Ashby who had rid Hector of the thorn in his paw, the one she had been hopelessly in love with. Her gaze traveled over his sprawled, large form, from his whipcord arms to his long legs. The fine material of his gray trousers stretched over his hard bottom, showing no signs of the two years he’d been buried in his house. Her brother had grown visibly flaccid since becoming domesticated, despite his regular visits to Gentleman Jackson’s. Then again, Stilgoe didn’t labor on slabs of timber in his cellar for months on end.
“What are you looking at?”
Startled, Isabel met Ashby’s twinkling eyes, blushing profusely. “I was admiring your…”
“My boots, perhaps?” He pushed up to a sitting position. “Or was it the cut of my trous—”
“I was admiring your children skills,” she blurted quickly, wishing she could douse her flaming face in the fishpond. “You seem quite adept at making little girls happy.”
“I’m quite adept at making older girls happy, too,” he drawled in his richly sensual voice.
She froze for a heartbeat. Since her coming-out, she had been flattered and flirted with and even propositioned by enough male members of the ton to recognize his line for what it was—but Ashby? The man had physically shoved her away from him when she had tried to kiss him. Of course, back in those days, she thought acidly, he wasn’t living the life of a lychnobite monk.
She glanced at her niece. Danielli was fast asleep on her pink blanket in the shade, a vision of angelic sweetness.
“You did say you require my special skills, did you not?” Ashby’s voice was no more than a warm whisper of air in her hair.
Her heart began to race. She dared not look at him. “It is irrelevant now.”
“Why?” His breath was warm on her cheek.
Summoning her earlier resolve to be his friend and nothing more, she drew back and faced him. “I wrote the message in the hopes of persuading you to support my charity.”
“I see. But why come to me? Your brother sits in the House of Lords.”
“Yes, well, he is encouraging me to look for representation elsewhere in the hopes it would solve his other problem.”
“What other problem?”
She shifted uneasily. “It is Stilgoe’s—and Mama’s—foremost wish that I should marry.”
He went very still. “Stilgoe wants you to marry me?”
Her gaze locked with his for a sizzling moment. He seemed so serious, almost shocked, she wondered whether she ought to be offended. “I never told him I intended to ask for your help.”
“Ah.” He nodded grimly and with this simple gesture withdrew his magnetic hold on her; the effect was akin to dropping hard on the ground. “Why is it a problem, then?” he asked. When she refused to answer, he smiled perceptively. “There’s the rub. You don’t want to marry.”
Her eyelashes gave an involuntary flutter. “Not at the moment. No.”
“Why not? You must think me ancient, but I still recall that most chits become obsessed with the topic the instant they are launched into Society.”
“I don’t think of you as ancient.”
“That’s reassuring, but you still haven’t answered my question,” he said softly, undeterred.
She squirmed inwardly. She hated that question, mostly because she had trouble answering it herself. “I lost a brother two years ago. Marriage wasn’t my primary concern.”
“And now?”
She evaded his gaze. “That depends.”
“On what?”
For goodness sake. “You’re like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?”
“That is one of the skills that made me a competent field commander and kept me alive.” His charming, self-assured smile numbed her brain—definitely his superior talent, she thought. “You love children. Don’t you want to become a mother, Isabel?”
She gritted her teeth. “You ought to ask yourself the very same question, Ashby. You are the one in need of an heir and a spare, and yet you are decidedly against marriage.”
“You are wrong about me,” he said quietly. “I was engaged once.”
Her world shook. “You were? What happened? You didn’t marry—?”
“It’s a long story, and we were discussing you. I wager there are a good number of eager young bucks dancing attendance on you.”
“Hordes. What of it?” she countered, straight-faced.
He leaned closer, his voice low, husky, and full of temptation. “Don’t you want a man who adores you, Isabel? A man who’ll introduce you to the physical aspects of love? Surely you are curious about such things.”
Drat. She felt so awkward discussing this with him, mostly because the only man she had ever come close to experiencing such things with was him. “I suppose I am. Slightly.”
“Slightly?” A ghost of a smile danced on his lips as his eyes darkened. “I recall a girl who was more than slightly curious.”
She sucked in a breath. “How dare you throw that in my face?” She blanched, wishing she had drowned herself in the pond. “I should go.” She started collecting Danielli’s dolls.
“Wait.” His hand closed on her arm. “Don’t be angry. We never had a chance to discuss it, but I think it’s time we did, don’t you?”
“There is nothing to discuss.” She couldn’t look at him; she felt so mortified.
“I disagree. You were very sweet that night, and I was—”
“There’s no point in rehashing the past.” She tried to jerk free of his grip, but he wouldn’t allow it. Damn the man. Tears stung her eyes. If he apologized for spurning her, she would turn into a watering pot. “I came as a friend,” she retorted, “and I’d very much like to leave as one.”
“A friend.”
“Yes, a friend. For years you were a part of our family, then you stopped coming. When Will died, and you still didn’t come to call, I…worried about you. You imprison yourself in this grand house, alone. You never go out in Society. You tell me your life is over—”
“Then you decided to rescue me.” He stared at her as though he considered throttling her. “Listen here, Miss Charity,” he clipped tersely. “I’m not one of your poor unfortunates. Nor am I your responsibility. I don’t need your help—or your frigging pity! I never lamented not having a sister, and now I know why. So I strongly suggest