Lord Dashwood Missed Out(16)

“You never wanted this. You want a convenient bride, and you want to soothe your pride. That’s all. In all these years, you never thought of me.”

“You’re so wrong. I’ve wanted this. I came back to England solely with the intention of courting you. I thought of you all the time. Every day I was away.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his unshaven throat. “Every night.”

“No. You’re only saying so now.”

“I’m not. It’s true.”

“There’s nothing in the world that could convince me of that.”

“My darling Nora. The world is exactly what will prove it.” Rising to his feet, he turned to Pauline where she stood behind the counter. “Fetch me a copy of Sir Bertram Coddington’s World Atlas, if you would. The newest edition.”

The duchess said, “I don’t have a copy of Sir Bertram Coddington’s World Atlas. In any edition.”

“Is this not a bookshop?”

“No. It’s a subscription library of books selected to interest young ladies on seaside holiday.”

The Duke of Halford glowered at him. “And unless you want to become intimately acquainted with our local waters—­by way of the nearest cliff—­I suggest you address my wife as ‘Your Grace.’ ”

Dash quickly recovered his manners, inclining his head in a bow. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”

“My father has a copy of that atlas at Summerfield, I believe,” said Lady Rycliff. Nora had taken an instant liking to her when they met. Ginger-­haired, freckled ladies needed to band together.

“Then do let’s go to Summerfield,” Dash replied.

“I’m not leaving here,” Nora protested. “I have a lecture to give.”

“You just finished that. You were on to questions.”

“Then I have questions to answer.” She looked around and nodded at a round-­faced girl who’d raised her hand. “Go ahead, dear. What was your question?”

The round-­faced girl looked at Dash. “What’s in the atlas?”

Nora sighed.

He grinned. “Perhaps someone else can fetch the book.”

She looked toward the gentlemen who’d made up her search party. “They’re not going to help you. None of them will help you.”

“Charlotte will fetch it,” Mrs. Highwood declared.

“I will?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes.” The matron nudged her daughter’s side and whispered loudly, “Can’t you see? The spinster is going to refuse him, and then he’ll be on the market again. I know he’s only a baron, but he is a handsome and wealthy one. This is your chance to be first in line.”

“Oh, Mama.” Charlotte covered her face.

“I’ll go with you, Charlotte,” Lady Rycliff volunteered. “It’s my father’s house, and I’ll admit—­my curiosity’s piqued, too.”

Once they’d departed, Dash gestured in invitation. “Go on with your talk, if you like.”

Nora sighed. How could she, with him standing there? She would wait for his atlas, and then she would be done with him.

In the meantime, she sat down, poured herself an inch of sherry, and downed it in one swallow.

Time had never passed so slowly. Nora tapped her boot heel against the chair leg. The assembled ladies sat staring and whispering among themselves. Their hostess passed around teacakes.

For his part, Dash merely stood a few feet away, hat in hand, gazing at Nora. Boldly. Unabashedly. Even, she fancied, adoringly.

“Do you know,” he said, “you’re ravishing when you’re trying to hate me forever.”

She couldn’t even look at him. “This ends today. When she returns with that atlas, you’re leaving.”

“When she returns with that atlas, you’re going to be overwhelmed. You might even cry.”

“I will not. You’re mad.”

He smiled. “Yes. But only a little, and entirely for you.”

Another several minutes passed. “It doesn’t matter what’s in that atlas. I couldn’t marry you. I’ve spent years telling young ladies that their value isn’t bound up in their marital status. What message would I send if I abandoned my career to marry you and bear your children?”

“To begin, there is no better way to prove the worth of one’s mind than to display a willingness to change it. Secondly, who said anything about abandoning your career? I’d never ask it. I believe it’s possible to write on board a ship.”

On board a ship?

She turned to look at him. “You’d take me with you?”

“If you wish to go. And I suspect you do, if only to castigate me on other continents. There’s an idea. Come with me to Tahiti and insult me on a white sand beach. Berate me on a South American mountaintop—­so loudly, the echo sets off an avalanche.”

Despite all her intentions to dampen it, a flame of excitement kindled in her heart.

And then he threw a log on the fire. “Aside from a thrilling honeymoon, you must admit it would make quite a book.”

Curse the man. He understood exactly how to tempt her.

“Just imagine the memoir. You could call it Lord Ashwood’s Ship Has Sailed. I’m certain the reading public would be fascinated.”

Several of the women in attendance nodded eagerly.

“Here it is!” Charlotte came dashing through the door, breathless. She plunked the immense volume down on the counter. “Lud. It weighs as much as a small mule.”

“Do you often carry small mules?” Dash asked her.

“Oh no, my lord. She does not,” Mrs. Highwood interjected, sidling up to Dash with a coquettish giggle. “My Charlotte is accomplished in all the feminine arts. Music, sketching, dancing, embroidery . . .”

“Mama.”

Charlotte yanked her mother away by force, leaving Nora and Dash with the atlas. Young ladies rose from their seats and gathered round.

Dash opened it, flipping through the plates before opening the volume to a detailed map of Upper Canada.

“Look.” He pointed to a miniscule oval on the map, with a bit of barely decipherable lettering next to it. “Read that. What does it say?”

“ ’Nora Pond,’ ” she read aloud, squinting. “So that’s it? I’m supposed to agree to marry you because you named a pond for me in Upper Canada?”

“No, no. The pond doesn’t exist.”

She stared at him.

“Most land features are named already,” he explained, “and for those that aren’t, Sir Bertram has a miles-­long list of patrons and royalty to whom he’s promised landmarks. I don’t get to decide on much of anything, in terms of reality. But we put a deliberately false feature in every map, you see. That way, we can tell if they’ve been copied. And these, I’m permitted to name.”

“So you named nothing after me.”

“Not just the once.” He flipped through the pages of the atlas, pausing on each spread to point out some notch or pinprick. “Here’s Mount Browning, you see. A total fiction. And Nora Creek on this one, also false. Ah, here we have Elinora Point.”

“You named several nothings after me.”

“Yes,” he said, excitedly. “Do you understand now?”

“No. I don’t.”

He shoved the atlas aside and took her face in his hands. “I named all the nothings after you. Because, my darling Nora . . . no matter where I traveled, you were always what was missing.”

“Oh.”

Her eyes burned at the corners.

Drat him. She was not going to cry.

She swallowed hard. She blinked. She tried to divert her mind to trivial, unpleasant things. Like tangled stockings, or raspberry seeds, or . . .

But his eyes. There wasn’t any escaping the rich, midnight darkness of his eyes—­nor the affection she saw within them.

Her heart overflowed.

His thumb swiped at her cheek. “See. I told you you’d cry.”

She sniffed. “I despise you.”

“No, you don’t.” He smiled. “Not any more than I despise you. Trust me, I know how it stings when someone tells you the truth about yourself. It’s like catching a glimpse of your reflection in a looking glass when you’re not prepared. Intolerable. I was furious when I read your pamphlet—­but only because I knew it was the truth. I’d known it for some time. The reality set in somewhere around the Tropic of Capricorn. When I left you behind at Greenwillow Hall . . . I’d missed out.”

“Then you should have turned back.”

“It was too late for that.” He kissed her lips. “Luckily, the world is a sphere. I was always traveling toward you. I just took the long way around.”

“For a map-­maker, you’re shockingly bad with directions.”

He shrugged in admission. “Then you’d best stay close. So I don’t lose the way.”

They stood that way for a long moment, just staring into each other’s eyes.

Really? she asked him without words.

He nodded. Really.

“I love you,” he murmured. “You rode away before I could say it this morning, but I love every part of you, Elinora Jane Browning. Mind, body, soul. Send me away if you like. I’ll honor your wishes. But this heart will always be yours.”