Page 42 of Just Imagine
He looked prickly. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“If you say so.”
“I say you’re going back to New York!”
“And I say I’m not.”
“It isn’t up to you to decide.”
That was truer than she could bear to admit, and she thought quickly. “You want to get rid of me, isn’t that right? And put an end to this ridiculous guardianship?”
“More than you’ll ever know.”
“Then you’ll let me stay at Risen Glory.”
“Forgive me if I don’t see the connection.”
She tried to speak calmly. “There are several gentlemen who wish to marry me. I simply need a few weeks to make up my mind which one I’m going to choose.”
His face clouded. “Make up your mind in New York.”
“How can I? It’s been a confusing three years, and this is the most important decision of my life. I have to consider it carefully, and I need familiar surroundings to do that. Otherwise I’ll never be able to decide, and neither of us wants that.” The explanation was thin at best, but she gave it all the sincerity she could muster.
His glower grew darker. He moved toward the fireplace. “Somehow I can’t see you as a devoted wife.”
She couldn’t see herself that way either, but still his comment offended her. “I don’t know why not.” She summoned an image of Lilith Shelton as she’d held court with her opinions about men and marriage. “Marriage is what every woman wants, isn’t it?” She adopted the same wide-eyed vacuousness she’d seen so often on her former classmate’s face. “A husband to take care of her, pretty clothes, a piece of jewelry on her birthday. What more could a woman want from life?”
Cain’s eyes grew wintry. “Three years ago when you were my stable boy, you were a thorn in my side, but you were brave and hardworking. That Kit Weston wouldn’t have been interested in selling herself for clothes and jewelry.”
“That Kit Weston hadn’t been forced by her guardian to attend a finishing school devoted to turning young girls into wives.”
She’d made her point. He reacted with a bored shrug and leaned against the mantelpiece. “It’s all in the past.”
“That past has molded who I am now.” She took a deep breath. “I intend to marry, but I don’t want to make the wrong choice. I need time, and I’d like to have that time here.”
He studied her. “These young men . . .” His voice dropped in pitch and developed an unsettling huskiness. “Do you kiss them like you kissed me yesterday?”
She needed all her willpower not to look away. “It was the fatigue from my journey. They’re much too gentlemanly to have pressed themselves as you did.”
“Then they’re fools.”
She wondered what he meant by that. He moved away from the fireplace. “Very well. You can have one month, but if you haven’t made up your mind by then, you’re going back to New York, husband or not. And another thing . . .” He tilted his head toward the hallway. “That crazy woman has to go. Let her rest for a day, then put her on the train. I’ll make sure she’s compensated.”
“No! I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I promised her.”
“That was your mistake.”
He looked so unbending. What argument could she offer that would convince him? “I can’t stay here without a chaperone.”
“It’s a little late to worry about respectability.”
“Perhaps for you, but not for me.”
“I don’t think she’ll be much of a chaperone. As soon as any of the neighbors talk to her, they’ll realize she’s crazy as a loon.”
