Heiress in Red Silk, Hunter, Madeline [good beach reads TXT] 📗

Did she really think marriage would be a good idea, or did she only want to preserve their dalliance?

Memories flooded her from their nights together. She felt his hands on her again, and arousal began flowing like an incoming tide. She realized that a bit of time had passed since Mr. Sanders spoke. She startled herself out of the reverie, to find him watching her.

“I was thinking about your question regarding honor. Giving it some hard examination.”

He just smiled back.

“I’d like you to write the contract. The other one we would have to sign. I’ll let you know the name once we are engaged. If we are ever engaged.”

She left the solicitor’s chambers and made her way outside. She did think Kevin was honorable. However, she also did not put it beyond him to use his sensual abilities to make her amenable to his notions. He had not asked her to provide money for Forestier, for example. However, floating as she was in sated bliss, she had only seen the bright side of any situation. If they married, would he continue doing that? Had he planned it at all?

All of which reminded her that she didn’t really know much about him. She knew he could be rude, and she knew his family were astonishing. She knew he spent most of his time on this enterprise. Or keeping watch over her. Or, presumably, at brothels.

Other than that, she possessed no picture of his life. He knew far more about her than she did about him. More, but not everything. She should rectify that. Quite likely when she did, he would conclude he didn’t even want this marriage.

She returned to the shop, making a little list in her mind of things to learn. She would ask him about some of them. Others she would discover on her own.

* * *

“What in hell are you doing out there?”

Nicholas’s voice came from a window in Whiteford House. It drew Kevin out of his contemplations.

“I am feeling the lay of the land,” he called back.

“You haven’t moved. You have merely stood there for close to an hour.”

He had not been checking the lay of the land in this garden. His mind had been pacing through the land at Melton Park. Specifically, the land between the lake and the manor house. It would not do to try and explain that to Nicholas. The entire idea was a mere seed at this point. He could not answer questions about it even if Nicholas could understand the answers, which was doubtful.

“Come in now. Chase has arrived,” Nicholas called.

Kevin walked toward the house. “Did you tell him that I am marrying Miss Jameson?”

“I did. If you had not wandered away and meditated in my garden you would have been here for it.”

“Was he shocked?”

“Only by the marrying part. Not the Miss Jameson part. Meet us in the dining room and we can talk about it.”

He didn’t want to talk about it. That usually meant someone intended to tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, that he was not thinking clearly, that society would be appalled, etcetera, etcetera.

He drew up under the window. “I want to go to Melton Park later this summer, if you are agreeable.”

“I thought the country bored you.”

“It does. I still want to go.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Go whenever you want. Now, go directly to the dining room. Don’t get lost in either the house or your thoughts.”

* * *

“Congratulations.” Chase raised his glass.

“It has not been settled, as I said.”

“I can’t imagine she would not agree.”

They sat in Nicholas’s library. Nicholas had claimed he needed to attend to something about the estate after dinner and left them alone.

“One never knows,” Kevin said. “Paris is one thing. London is another. As I learned this afternoon, to my endless irritation.”

“You can hardly be surprised. Agnes was willing to receive her for a family dinner so everyone could look her over. She will never accept Miss Jameson as your bride. It is not her decision, though. It is yours.”

“Nicholas thinks it is only about her inheritance. He left us alone, so he has probably expressed reservations on that. He wants you to do a discreet inquiry now, doesn’t he?”

“He had a pressing matter to attend. However, since you mentioned it—Is this about her inheriting half your enterprise?”

Was it? Mostly. But, Kevin realized, not entirely.

“If tomorrow a codicil to the will were discovered that transferred that share to you and she no longer owned it, would you still marry her?” Chase asked ever so casually, as if a challenge was not being posed.

“If there had been such a codicil, I never would have met her. If you don’t hold her birth against her, I don’t see why you would have any concerns. It isn’t as if such marriages aren’t normal. This year or next, Nicholas will make a good, practical marriage too. Your marriage is the one that is unusual.”

Chase smiled with some chagrin. “Forgive me. I have developed the odd notion that my good friends should know happiness too.”

Kevin watched how the lamplight played on the inky red of his port. “I think I have a fair chance at happiness. However, during the inquisition I faced this afternoon, Aunt Agnes said something that does cause me the slightest pause.”

“You were listening? I send my mind elsewhere when she goes on.”

“She said I knew nothing about her. That is not true. I know quite a bit, but—when I line up what I know, there are gaps.”

“Gaps?”

“Mmm. The whole way Uncle met her, for example. I know why she says he gave her some money. Because she nursed someone he knew, she said. But when and how? There are empty spots in her history like that.”

“Perhaps you should ask her about them.”

“I thought you might already know. You are the one who found her.”

“You found her.”

“I gave you a name and a town. You did the rest.”

“Minerva did the rest. I left it all