Page 51 of Married to the Earl

“In the parlor?” She blinked. “Is that usual?”

“No,” he said. “But we haven’t troubled ourselves with what’s usual so far in our marriage, have we?”

“I suppose not,” she agreed with a smile.

“Come sit down,” he suggested. “The fire is nice and warm.”

She looked around. “Sit where?” she asked. “All the chairs are fairly far away from the fireplace.”

Conor picked up a thick blanket, shook it once, and then spread it on the floor. “My mother made this blanket before she passed,” he said, indicating that Astrid should take a seat.

She sat. “It’s lovely,” she said, running her fingers over the pattern. “I didn’t realize your mother liked to knit.”

“She was good with her hands,” Conor said, remembering the way his mother had liked to sit in her rocking chair after supper each night and knit a few rows of whatever she was working on. “She was like you in a lot of ways, actually.”

“I don’t know how to knit,” Astrid said.

“But you don’t think it’s beneath you,” Conor explained. “You’re not afraid to work hard. You don’t think servants should do everything so that you don’t have to.”

Astrid smiled. Conor watched her, admiring the faint blush that rose to color her cheeks. “I thought you thought that was strange,” she said. “I thought you wanted me to get over it.”

“I want you to feel comfortable with the household staff,” Conor said. “They’re doing their jobs. But I like that you don’t think you’re better than anybody.” He smiled. “And I like that you don’t think anybody’s better than you. I admired that about you from the first.”

“You did?” Astrid asked. “My father always said I ought to learn my place.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Conor said. “I liked that you weren’t afraid to tell me what you were thinking. When I saw you in the window, and when your father offered me your hand, I knew you were lovely. But I expected you to shy away from me. I didn’t expect that you’d be able to speak your mind.”

“And all the while I was thinking I was putting doubts in your head by doing so,” Astrid said.

Conor shook his head. “You were dispelling my doubts,” he said. “You let me know that you could hold your own, that you wouldn’t allow your life to be ruined by my bad reputation.”

“I don’t care about your reputation,” Astrid said.

Conor raised his eyebrows. That was hard to believe.

“I don’t,” she insisted. “Whatever bad things people say about you, they aren’t the truth. I’ve been here only two weeks, and that’s already obvious to me. You’re a good man, Conor, and a good husband, and anyone who says different is lying.”

“That’s kind of you,” Conor said.

“I’m just telling the truth,” she said. “It isn’t kindness, it’s honesty.”

“It can be both,” he said with a smile. “But have you truly considered the fact that you can be painted by the rumors about me?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said.

Conor’s heart sank. If that hadn’t occurred to her, would it change her mind? Would she want to leave him once she’d thought about it?I’ll stick to what I offered, he resolved.I’ll let her go if she wants to. I won’t force her to be here against her will. I care about her too much now.

She must have seen his distress on his face. “I haven’t considered it because it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I thought of it. Of course I did. I thought of it for a few moments on our wedding day. I wondered what people would think when they saw I was marrying you. But I stopped thinking about it a long time ago.”

“Did you really?”

“I’ve had other things to think about,” she said quietly, and rested her hand on top of his. “I haven’t been spending much time worrying about gossip.”

Conor paused for a moment, relishing in her touch. Then he turned his hand over beneath hers and curled his fingers around hers, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it gently.

“It’s easy to ignore the outside world when you’re spending all day here in the manor,”he said. “Will you be able to do it when we have to attend balls and other social functions? How will you feel when you can actually see the people who are gossiping about us?”

“I don’t know,” Astrid admitted. “I didn’t like that much at the wedding.”

---