Backlit by the sun, they shone around her face like a butterscotch halo.
‘What have you got to lose?’ he persisted, determined to impose his will on her. Overwrite the Coleridge name with his own.
‘Marriage is a lot easier to get into than it is to get out of,’ she protested. Still, despite every advantage, resisting him. ‘There has to be an easier solution to baby care than marrying the first woman to cross your path.’
‘Not the first,’ he replied. ‘I passed several women in the park and I can assure you that it never crossed my mind to marry any of them.’
‘No?’
He’d managed to coax the suggestion of a smile from her.
‘Divorce is easy enough if both parties are in agreement,’ he assured her. ‘You’ll be giving up a year of your freedom in return for your ancestral home. It looks like a good deal to me.’
The smile did not materialise. ‘I can see the advantage from my point of view,’ she said. ‘But what’s in it for you? You can’t really be that desperate to offload Nancie.’
‘Who said anything about “offloading” Nancie?’ He allowed himself to sound just a little bit offended by her suggestion that he was doing that. ‘On the contrary, I’m doing my best to do what her mother asked. It’s not as if I intend to leave you to manage entirely on your own. I have to go away tomorrow, but I’ll pull my weight until then.’
‘Oh, right. And how do you intend to do that?’
‘I’ll take the night watch. The master bedroom is made up. I’ll pack a bag and move in there today.’
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