if you ever succeed. I cannot waste my life waiting on the event.’
‘Would it be a waste then, Beatrice?’ He paused. ‘We would be together.’
‘To live in the hedgerows?’
‘Hardly that. I can support you in comfort.’
‘But you cannot give me position.’
‘Does that matter so much?’
‘Of course it matters. My father is rich and powerful, the laird of fair estates. Should not my husband be the same?’
‘I cannot blame you for wanting it,’ he replied.
‘Well then.’
‘I thought … I hoped that your feelings for me were strong enough to offset that.’
Beatrice smiled coldly. ‘You rate yourself too high, my lord, if you presume to think so. I am not so negligent of the duty I owe to my family and my name as to throw myself away on a mere nobody.’
Stung now, he was goaded into retort. ‘The Thanes of Heslingfield are not nobodies. They come from a proud and ancient line.’
‘But where are they now? They have no power, no influence. They are nothing.’
Brian pushed the memory aside. He’d been a fool and paid the price for it. The naïve and idealistic lover was long gone and in his place was a grown man who knew the world he lived in. This offer was an opportunity, one he’d little thought to have. It would provide a foundation on which much might be built—in time.
‘We have an agreement then,’ he said.
Graham smiled and held out his hand. ‘You’ll not regret it.’
Ban clasped the offered hand and hoped the words were true.
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