Page 46 of A Lady's Wager
He looked up at her and popped a pink macaroon into his mouth. He chewed twice, then waved a hand at the empty plate again, speaking with his mouth full. “Eat.”
They were back in the carriage, Etta steeped in embarrassment and worry and Mr. Firth watching her, which she pretended not to notice.
“Tell me about your husbands,” he said after the silence apparently proved too much for him.
She met his eyes. “Why?”
“We’ve hours yet to travel, the time will go faster if we have conversation. Besides, I told you about my late wife. It is only fair.”
“You have good feelings for her, it likely feels nice to share them.”
He smiled. “A happy aftereffect of having been in love, I suppose.”
It was a thin reference to what she’d said about the woman’s death causing pain only because he’d been in love with her, but she could hardly blame him for the jab. As the depth of his sacrifice for her situation became more real, her embarrassment for being so confrontational got stronger. Had she any right todeny him the information he was asking for now? She owed him a good deal more than that.
“I married Mr. Knight when I was nineteen years old, and we were married eight years before his death. I married Lord Camey two years later, and we were married twelve years. He passed eight years ago and left me well cared for.”
“And they were not happy unions?”
He looked at her expectantly, eyebrows raised.
She argued with herself and decided to be more open than she might be otherwise. “I could not have children. I did not know this when I married, of course, but my husband was unable to forgive me for it, and whatever warmth was there died between us. My second husband gave me the security I needed, for which I will ever be grateful. But he was silly and indolent and increasingly…mean as the years went on. In regard to women finding happiness in security, however, I was happy.”
“Yes, those sound like the marriages of a very happy woman.”
She shrugged. “You asked the question, sir.”
“That I did,” he said, nodding. “So, twenty years of marriage, ten years of widowhood. I can only imagine which of those you prefer.”
She nodded, then fiddled with the strings of her reticule.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Mr. Firth,” she said, feeling heat in her cheeks. “This is an inappropriate conversation.”
“My apologies,” he said with a nod. “But have you? I’m guessing you might have been in love with the first husband, probably not the second. Anyone in between?”
She let out a breath and gave him a pointed look, which he ignored.
Instead he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, shortening the distance between them and causing her skin to warm with the ferocity of his attention.
“Have you thought to marry again?” he asked. “I would imagine that a woman of your countenance and mind would have had any number of suitors.”
The compliment took her off guard but did not change her answer. “I have no need of marriage.”
“But you have had suitors,” he said as though this were a fact, which it was, though she would not confirm it. “You are a striking woman, as I’m sure you are aware, and your confidence and capability are…disarming, to say the least. Surely I am not the first man to have noticed that.”
She swallowed. It had been a long time since she’d heard such a compliment, and she felt her heart soaking it in. “The people in my circle are aware of my disinterest in another match. There are plenty of other women to choose from.”
“Have you taken lovers during your widowhood?”
If she were not in a carriage, she’d have stood and stormed from the room, but she was in a carriage—his carriage. She clenched her teeth together and turned to look out the window, aware of how hot her cheeks were and certain he noticed.
“I shall take that as a yes,” he said.
She snapped back to face him and he laughed. “Or rather a no. Surely you miss a touch in the night, a knowing look from across the room.”
She forced herself to hold his gaze, even as her mind went back to the conversation she’d had with Elizabeth not long ago and her acceptance of the attraction she felt toward Mr. Firth. There had been a few men over the years with whom she’d entertained a dalliance, though perhaps flirtation was a better definition. She’d not taken them to her bed, though she’d been tempted a time or two. It had never felt right to share such intimacies with someone she would not commit to, and she had been quite certain each time that she would not commit. There was no reason for her to give up her independence, and she haddiscarded the men who threatened it. In time, the connections that mattered were with her women friends, and that provided all the richness she needed.
