‘Lion?’ She bent to stroke the elderly spaniel’s ears. If it truly was Lion, then Edmund couldn’t be far behind. She straightened up just as a vision of sartorial elegance came sauntering leisurely along the path from the lakeside. His boots shone in the pale spring sunshine, his coat fluttered out behind him as he walked, giving tantalising glimpses of a beautifully cut jacket and snowy white neckcloth. His light brown hair was cropped so severely that not a single lock could venture out from beneath the brim of his hat.
But his eyes were hidden by the way light reflected off the lenses of his spectacles. He’d probably worn them to create a physical barrier between them. As if she needed to be reminded of the immense gulf that separated them nowadays. Because he couldn’t possibly need to wear them for any other reason, not when he was walking about his own estate.
Not unless his eyesight had deteriorated an awful lot since they’d last been on speaking terms.
The Earl of Ashenden came to a standstill and swept her with one of those cold, imperious looks designed to put the lower orders in their place. A look designed to impel her to drop a curtsy and beg his pardon, and go back to where she belonged. A look that made her acutely aware of her windswept hair, her mud-caked boot and the fact that her gloves had worn so thin in parts they were almost in holes.
A look that made her wish she really was holding a muddy boot in one of her hands, so that she could throw it at him and knock that horrid, supercilious, unfeeling, inhuman look off his face. She was just picturing a boot-shaped stain splattering the front of his expensively tailored coat when Lion wheezed and flopped down at her feet.
‘I cannot believe you made poor old Lion walk all the way up here,’ she said, since she didn’t have any other missile to hand.
‘I did not,’ he replied. ‘We came in the carriage as far as the alder copse.’
‘You came in a carriage?’ Now it was her turn to look at him with scorn. What kind of man took a carriage out to drive a mere mile, especially when he had a stable full of perfectly splendid hunters?
As though she’d spoken those thoughts aloud, his head reared back. ‘I thought Lion would be pleased to see you,’ he said, with just a touch of emphasis on the spaniel’s name, which conveyed the implication that the dog was the only one who regarded this meeting as a treat. ‘It is too far for him to walk, at his age. Also, he enjoys riding beside me in an open carriage.’
As if to prove his master right, Lion chose that moment to roll on to his back to invite her to rub his tummy. She bent and did so, using the moment to hide her face, which she could feel heating after his rebuke. She couldn’t really believe that his attitude could still hurt so much. Not after all the times he’d pretended he couldn’t even see her, when she’d been standing practically under his nose. She really ought to be immune to his disdain by now.
‘Did you have something in particular to ask me,’ he asked in a bored tone, ‘or should I take my dog and return to Fontenay Court?’
‘You know very well I have something of great importance to ask you,’ she retorted, finally reaching the end of her tether as she straightened up, ‘or I wouldn’t have sent you that note.’
‘And are you going to tell me what it is any time soon?’ He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and looked down at it. ‘Only, I have a great many pressing matters to attend to.’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I do beg your pardon, my lord,’ she said, dipping into the best curtsy she could manage with a dog squirming round her ankles and her riding habit still looped over one arm. ‘Thank you so much for sparing me a few minutes of your valuable time,’ she added, through gritted teeth.
‘Not at all.’ He made one of those graceful, languid gestures with his hand that indicated noblesse oblige. ‘Though I should, of course, appreciate it if you would make it quick.’
Make it quick? Make it quick! Four days she’d been waiting for him to show up, four days he’d kept her in an agony of suspense, and now he was here, he was making it clear he wanted the meeting to be as brief as possible so he could get back to where he belonged. In his stuffy house, with his stuffy servants and his stuffy lifestyle.
Just once, she’d like to shake him out of that horrid, contemptuous, self-satisfied attitude of his towards the rest of the world. And make him experience a genuine, human emotion. No matter what.
‘Very well.’ She’d say what she’d come to say, without preamble. Which would at least give her the pleasure of shocking him almost as much as if she really were to throw her boot at him.
‘If you must know, I want you to marry me.’
The Earl of Ashenden took a silk handkerchief from his pocket, removed his spectacles and began to polish the lenses.
The way he’d always done when he was trying to think about exactly what to say before saying it. If she wasn’t trying so hard to convince him she could act the part of a grand lady, she would have done a little victory dance. Because she’d succeeded into shocking him into silence. Edmund Fontenay. The man who was never at a loss for a clever remark.
‘While I am flattered by your proposal,’ he said, replacing his spectacles on his nose, ‘I must confess to being a touch surprised.’
Hah! He didn’t need to confess any such thing. Not to her. Not when she knew exactly what the whole spectacles removing and wiping and replacing routine was all about. She’d stumped him. ‘Would you mind very much explaining why you have suddenly developed this interest in becoming...’ he paused, his gaze growing even colder than it normally did whenever it turned in her direction these days ‘...the Countess of Ashenden?’
She sucked in a sharp breath at the low blow. ‘I have no interest in becoming the Countess of Ashenden. It isn’t like that!’
‘No?’ He raised one eyebrow as if to say he didn’t believe her, but would very graciously give her the chance to explain.
‘No. Because I know full well I’m the very last person qualified to hold such a position.’ At least, that’s what his mother would say. And what Stepmama had said. Countless times. That it would be useless to set her cap at him—even if she’d been the kind of girl to indulge in that sort of behaviour—since the next Countess of Ashenden would have a position in the county, and the country, for which Georgiana simply didn’t have the training. Let alone the disposition.
‘In fact, I would much rather you weren’t an earl at all, but just...my neighbour.’ But unfortunately he was an earl. And he hadn’t been her neighbour for some years. He came back to Bartlesham as rarely as possible. His interests lay in London, with the new, clever friends he’d made. Her real neighbours had begun to wonder if he was going to turn out just like his father, who’d only ever returned to his ancestral seat to turn his nose up at it. ‘Oh, what’s the use? I might have known this was a waste of time.’
‘You might,’ he said.
‘Well, we cannot all be as clever as you,’ she retorted. ‘Some of us still do stupid things, hoping that people won’t let them down. You might as well say it—some of us never learn, do we?’
‘Some of us,’ he replied, slowly advancing, ‘would be more inclined to assist a...neighbour in distress if that neighbour would explain themselves clearly, without flinging emotional accusations left, right and centre. If, for example, you have no interest in becoming a countess, why have you asked me to consider marrying you?’
He was standing closer to her now than he’d done since they’d both been children. Close enough for her to see those blue flecks in his eyes, which prevented them from looking as though they were chiselled from ice. This close, she’d swear she could see a spark of interest, rather than cold indifference. This close, she could even, almost, imagine