“We have nothing in common,” she said.
“And it took you nine weeks to discover this?” he said.
He had courted her for nine weeks and four days.
“Is that why you’ve come?” she said. “Is that what troubles you? You’re annoyed because it took me so long to know my own mind?”
“Damnation, Barbara, you know my situation is dire,” he said. “I’ve made no secret of it.”
“I know all too well,” she said. He was by no means the first impecunious gentleman who’d come calling. She’d had no trouble rejecting any of the others. But he, the most desperate of them all—and the least conciliatory—had stolen her heart. Or run over it like the human locomotive he was. “I’m sorry. But you never gave me time to think. You were always there.”
His gaze shot to hers and held it, challenging her, as he always did. “Of course I was always there. The competition was ferocious.”
“The competition for my fortune.”
“You’ve a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds,” he said. “If you think no man takes that into consideration—no man, that is, past the age of puppyish blind devotion—”
“I should never accuse you of blind devotion, my lord.”
“If you want me to tell you I would have courted you even had you been penniless, I’m sorry to shatter your girlish dreams,” he said. “I can’t afford sentiment. I thought you understood I wasn’t in a position to let my heart dictate to my head.”
And if you had been in such a position?
But she knew the answer to that one. He would never have come near Miss Findley of Little Etford had his father not died six months ago and left him stupendously deep in debt.
“I did understand,” she said. “And I won’t pretend I saw no advantages to myself from the connection. Prestige for my family. Advancement for Philip in whatever profession he chose. And you were so assiduous in your courting.” He had laid siege to her heart, as his ancestors had once upon a time laid siege to the castles and lands they wanted. “Then there were Mama and Papa, so strongly in your favor. Between your wooing and their pointing out your numerous perfections, you seemed to be there, every waking minute. And you can be overwhelming, my lord.”
Overwhelming in every way. Not simply his manner, the absolute self-assurance of an aristocrat of ancient pedigree. There was his personality, so compelling that he made everyone else about him seem like figures in a mist. There was as well the rampant masculinity, in the way he spoke, the way he moved . . . and the way he looked. He was tall and powerfully built, with nothing soft about him, in physique or features. His face was by no means conventionally handsome. His features were too strong: the sharp angles of cheekbones and jaw, the bold, patrician nose, the hard mouth and mocking eyes.
The combination, for her, had proved nothing short of devastating.
“Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Nothing overwhelms you.”
“So I flattered myself,” she said. “But since you returned to London—”
“—to prepare for our wedding—”
“—and reconcile the queen to your marrying the daughter of a man of commerce—”
“Her Majesty doesn’t give a damn who I marry,” he said. “She’s too starry-eyed over her beautiful Albert.”
The Queen of England would be marrying for love.
And Barbara Findley, an ordinary mortal whose grandfather had been an innkeeper, could not.
“The point is, your personality is so forceful that one is swept along in your wake,” she said. “And so I couldn’t think clearly until you were gone. And then I thought about all the advantages . . . but it wasn’t . . . enough. I realized I couldn’t be happy.”
He stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes telling her nothing. Then he let out a sigh. “I see,” he said.
“Do you?” she said.
“Yes, of course.”
His gaze having turned to the letter in his hand, Rothwick didn’t see the despairing look she sent him.
He couldn’t decide what to do with the letter. Crumpling it into a ball and throwing it on the fire seemed excessively dramatic.
He had been still trying to dry out, this time at the parlor fire, when she’d flown into the room, in the way she always did, so full of life, and seemingly so glad to see him. He’d heard the rustle of petticoats, and his pounding heart had skipped in pleasure. When he’d turned to look, the murky day seemed to brighten in the radiance of her. It wasn’t merely her copper-bright hair, a mass of ill-behaved ringlets. It wasn’t simply her luminous skin with its light dusting of golden freckles or the intelligence sparkling in her green eyes. It was all those things, yes, and more: She always seemed lit from within.