Jennie demanded, breaking into Kit’s thoughts. “Have you been struck dumb?”
“While I will admit to feeling slightly less than my usual intelligent self,” Kit replied, a note of bitter self-mockery in his tone, “I am not about to oblige you by descending into imbecility, as even being forced to wed you, my dear Jennie, cannot make me forget I am a Wilde, and as such above any such cowardly dodge. Not that the idea is entirely without appeal, you understand.”
“Then you are going to simply knuckle under, marry a woman you obviously detest—making the both of us totally miserable in the process—rather than make the least push at settling the matter another way?” Jennie’s huge eyes were staring at him incredulously.
“What other way would you suggest?” Kit asked politely, taking Jennie’s hand and placing it on his arm before guiding her in a leisurely stroll along the garden path.
Jennie’s brow creased in concentration as she cudgeled her brain in a quest for some splendid burst of inspiration. Sadly, none was forthcoming, and upon reaching the gate at the bottom of the path, she admitted she hadn’t a clue as to where to search for salvation.
“I’d be inclined to suggest prayer,” Lord Bourne said, tongue in cheek, “but I doubt the Lord grants entreaties that have to do with transporting earls to the far side of the moon.” Turning so that they faced each other fully before he uttered the fateful words, Kit then intoned solemnly, “Miss Maitland, I have admired you from the moment of our first meeting and can only hope that you have come to return my esteem at least in part. Please, Miss Maitland, do me the honor of making me the happiest man on earth by consenting to become my bride.”
As a proposal of marriage it lacked nothing in composition, although condemned men must have sounded more cheerfully animated speaking their final words before mounting the scaffold. And if his mention of their first meeting was taken at face value, devoid of any intentional double meaning, Jennie supposed it was a much nicer proposal than she could have expected under the circumstances. It was not, however, the proposal she had dreamed of ever since reading her first Minerva Press romance.
If her heart beat faster, it was with the frantic flutterings of a trapped animal, and not the accelerated rhythm all romantic heroines experienced at the very sight of their beloved. If her breathing was swift and shallow, it was panic, not passion, that set her young breast to heaving rapidly up and down. And if her milky English complexion was very prettily set off by a sudden blush of dusky rose suffusing her cheeks, it should be remembered that agitation should not automatically be construed as excitement.
Jennie looked searchingly into Kit’s blue eyes, searching in vain for some carefully concealed humorous glint that would assure her he had spoken in jest. She found none. He was serious, she concluded at last, deadly serious. Earls may not steal kisses from baronets’ daughters, even if they thought they were merely indulging in a bit of a lark with some little nobody of no consequence. Violators, this unwritten law decreed, will forfeit either their honor or their freedom.
Lord Bourne had made his choice. He would marry her to satisfy the conventions. And to save her good name, she reminded herself nastily, she shouldn’t forget that little favor—not that Bundy would ever let her.
“Well,” she said at last, just when Kit was beginning to think she would turn him down flat and wildly wondering just why this particular notion should distress him as much as it did, “you aren’t fat. There’s that at least.”
Kit smiled broadly, clasping her hands in his as something tightly coiled deep inside his chest obligingly relaxed. “I’m not bad either,” he pointed out cheerfully, amused by her youthful bluntness.
Jennie returned his smile, shyly at first, and then expanding the smile into a wide grin. “Or ancient, full of prickles and complaints, and suffering with the gout.”
“Or foul-smelling, or afflicted with warts, or widowed with six bawling brats for you to mother, or hard of hearing, or missing half my teeth.”
“Or a dedicated gamester?”
“Not even on nodding acquaintance with the cent-per-centers, playing for sport but never too deep.”
“Or overfond of spirits?”
“Moderation—moderation in all things—that’s my motto!” he averred, conveniently dismissing his truly dedicated drinking of the night just past.
“Well then, a girl would be foolish beyond permission to turn her back on such an obvious catch as you, my lord, wouldn’t she?” Jennie declared, her smile faltering a bit before shining as before.
At last she could see the humor lurking in Lord Bourne’s twinkling eyes. “Foolish indeed, Miss Maitland,” he assured her, lightly squeezing her hands.
‘Then…then I accept your kind proposal, sir, and I thank you.” The fateful words spoken, Jennie allowed her smile to fade and dipped her head, no longer able to meet Kit’s all-seeing gaze.
As she stood there, doing her utmost not to tremble and thus betray her nervousness, Kit slipped his crooked index finger beneath her chin and lifted her face toward his descending head. “A betrothal must be sealed with a kiss,” he whispered solemnly before laying claim to Jennie’s lips with the velvet warmth of his mouth.
Remembering their first kiss—the way he had captured her in his embrace and exercised his considerable aptitude in the fine art of seduction—Kit deliberately kept this kiss gentle, undemanding; a tentative exploration rather than an attempt at conquest, and Jennie responded by allowing her lips to soften, molding themselves to fit against his in a highly pleasing manner.
He did not wish to wed Jennie. He did not wish to be married at all until at least a half-dozen more years of bachelor-oriented indulgence and high living were behind him. He resented being pushed into matrimony at, figuratively at least, the point of a gun, and to a mere child just out of the nursery, no less.
Jennie Maitland was the exact opposite of the sort of female he had hoped to surround himself with in London. She was much too young, for one thing, besides being woefully inexperienced—possessing none of the brittle sophistication required to survive in the haut ton—and to top it all, he decided glumly, the outside world would consider him responsible for her well-being and behavior.
Kit had just completed two grueling years of volunteer duty in Spain, and he was sick to death of responsibility—responsibility for the men who fought and died under him, and responsibility for the constant daily decisions of command. His wound and his lengthy convalescence had sorely tried his patience, with only the prospect of the gaiety promised in the coming London Season serving to keep a rein on his impatience until he was free to join his friends in an orgy of hell-raking and carousing that would set the metropolis on its heels.
A wife could only be viewed as a serious impediment to his plans. Husbands lacked the freedom of bachelors, especially brand-new, supposedly honeymooning husbands. He would marry the chit and leave her at Bourne Manor for the Season if he could, but his conscience overrode him on that score. Besides, he felt sure, Sir Cedric was not beneath another theatrical display of ill health just to force his son-in-law’s hand, and Kit didn’t think his constitution could bear another such performance. But going around London with a wife in train was going to be like trying to run with an anchor—or should he say “mantrap”—chained to his ankle, deuced difficult.
And yet…and yet, he thought as Jennie allowed him to take her more fully into his arms, the child wasn’t totally
