‘Spectacles!’
‘Daniel—that is, your uncle—told me that you were the clever one of his nieces. So I imagined eyes weakened by long hours of study. Hence the spectacles.’
Though his tone was cool, there was, she was almost certain, a hint of laughter in his eyes. A sense of humour was another thing that Eloise had not expected. ‘I hope you are not now imagining me ill-tempered. I should tell you that I consider myself extremely even-tempered, and if you think that the colour of my hair tells a different story, then you are making a common, very facile assumption. Red hair does not denote a fiery temper any more than the looks of a—a Greek god denote a—a romantic poet.’
‘Rhyming cat with mat exhausts my poetic abilities. Shall we sit, or would you prefer to continue trading misconceptions standing up?’
‘I do beg your pardon.’ Her face flaming, Eloise finally remembered her manners. ‘How was your journey, Lord Fearnoch?’
‘Painless.’ He sat down, seemingly at ease, and studied her overtly. ‘It is clear, Miss Brannagh, that your imagination had conjured as inaccurate a picture of me as I did of you.’
If only he knew! Her colour heightened. ‘I did not—I tried not to anticipate—after all, it is not as if we are required to find each other—I mean—I mean you did say in your letter that it would be a marriage in name only,’ she finished lamely.
This time she was certain she caught a glimmer of a smile. ‘Indulge me,’ he said. ‘How would you imagine an Admiralty clerk, I wonder? Dandruff, or a squint? Ink-stained cuffs? A man with a stoop, perhaps, from spending his life poring over dusty ledgers?’
Eloise laughed. Lord Fearnoch steepled his hands, waiting. She could not possibly tell him. The silence stretched. She wasn’t used to silence. ‘My sisters, they cannot understand why an earl with a fortune should wish to marry me.’
‘How very unkind of your sisters to say so.’
‘No, I mean—not me, but anyone. A complete stranger. They think that you must be—’ Mortified now, she broke off, shaking her head, but he simply raised an enquiring brow, and waited. Eloise counted out forty-five seconds before she threw up her hands in surrender. ‘If you must know, they thought you must at least be averse to bathing, or toothless perhaps. We knew that Uncle Daniel would have said in his letter if there had been some—some physical—defect—so it had to be the sort of drawback that men don’t really notice.’ She grimaced. ‘Sorry. You did ask.’
‘I did.’
That silence again. ‘You obviously do bathe regularly,’ Eloise said, trying for a smile.
He nodded.
‘And your teeth are—well, what I can see of them, they are...’
He burst out laughing. ‘All there, and in good condition. You sound as if you are inspecting a horse with a view to buying it.’
He had a very attractive laugh. Relieved beyond measure, Eloise relaxed a little. ‘But that is precisely what we are doing, in a manner of speaking, aren’t we? I hadn’t thought—I mean, I was looking forward—but then this morning it occurred to me that it would be—well, it’s very awkward. You’re looking me over and I’m looking you over, and for the life of me, I can’t understand, now you are here—I beg your pardon, but I think the twins—my sisters—have a point. A man like you, surely there must be women queuing up to be your wife?’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry. You must think I am an idiot, but you are so silent I feel compelled to fill the gaps.’
‘I tend to say something when I have something to say.’
‘Does that mean you think I’m a wittering fool or don’t you have an answer to my question? Or perhaps you think I oughtn’t to have asked it, though I must say, I do think it a pertinent question, my lord.’
She would not speak. She would sit here without uttering another word until he answered. Eloise bit her lip. She would not count the seconds. She folded her arms. She unfolded them. ‘I don’t mean literally queuing, my lord, I meant...’
‘I understood you perfectly, Miss Brannagh. Would you mind calling me Alexander? When you “my lord” me, it makes me want to look over my shoulder for my brother, Walter.’
‘You would not be here, if your brother were still alive.’
‘I wish to heaven that he was.’ He coloured. ‘Forgive me, I meant no offence, but I think it is best that we are candid with each other from the outset. I had no ambition to be either an earl or a husband. The truth is, I am obliged to be both.’
‘Well! The truth is, I would rather not be married either. At least—I would rather not be married,’ Eloise added hurriedly. Lord Fearnoch—Alexander—smiled. His smile lit up his eyes, and it acted on Eloise like a punch in the stomach. Their eyes met, and something very odd seemed to pass between them that made her cheeks heat in a way that had nothing to do with embarrassment. ‘If you understand my meaning,’ she added.
He nodded, breaking eye contact, smoothing the palms of his hands over his pantaloons. Was he nervous? Already regretting his decision to come here? Fortunately, before she could voice this fear, Alexander cleared his throat. ‘I think it would be a good idea for us to learn a little about one another before we launch into the business which brought me here. As you will know from my letter to Lady Elmswood, time is of the essence.’
‘I understand that you must marry before your thirtieth birthday or forfeit your inheritance.’
‘And it is a very large inheritance, though I’m not particularly interested in it for my own sake. I am aware that sounds disingenuous, but it happens to be the truth.’
She couldn’t say what it was that made her believe him, but she did. ‘Why, then, are you interested—no, that cannot be the right word, for you are sacrificing your bachelorhood to inherit, so you must have more at stake than an interest in inheriting?’
He smiled faintly. ‘Very well, let us say that I think it is my duty to marry. No, since you insist on being precise, let me rephrase that. My conscience tells me that I must marry.’
‘Why?’
Alexander did not answer her directly. ‘I had no expectations of inheriting. My brother’s untimely death, and his lack of foresight in providing an heir, have come as a most unwelcome surprise.’
He spoke lightly, but his eyes spoke of a different, more brittle emotion. ‘Your brother had no children, then? But he must have been married to have inherited, since the entail—I’m sorry if this is a painful subject to you, your brother has not even been dead a year, but...’
‘My brother and I were not close.’ Alexander’s mouth thinned in the brief silence which followed this interjection. ‘There are—were—eight years between us. We were raised very differently. Walter, as the heir in waiting, was fully aware of the terms of the entail, and married shortly after he came of age. His wife died in childbirth along with their son about five years later. The entail did not require Walter to remarry, but I never doubted he would. As a quintessential Fearnoch male, he would have been keen to maintain the proud patriarchal tradition of passing the title directly from father to son—a tradition which his sudden death has put an end to. Unfortunately, the conditions of
