Page 17 of The Misfortunate Miss Farthington
She felt a pang of fear for the first time at the mention of her father. “I don’t know that he’ll give permission,” she felt compelled to point out. Because she knew her father, and she knew well his hopes for her future.
They did not include settling for a third-born son and scholar when there was a chance to marry an earl.
He leaned down closer, his gaze bright with emotion. “But are you amenable? Would you be able to reconcile yourself to—”
“Yes,” she said, so quickly they both began to laugh. She with rueful embarrassment and him with something akin to wonder.
“That’s all I need to know then,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips. “That iseverythingI need to know.”
6
The distance between Richard and Tessa’s father was not vast.
No more than a yard separated them, and no more than a desk sat between them. But Richard felt as though they might have been standing on opposite sides of a ravine for all the common ground they shared.
“I’m sure you can understand where I’m coming from,” Tessa’s father said. Not unkindly.
A muscle in Richard’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth. He wasn’t an angry man. He’d never once given in to a fit of temper. But sitting here now, listening to this stuffed shirt viscount prattle on about how he’d soon be earl and how that meant his daughter deserved a better match than some gentleman scholar with no title or fortune to his name…
The fact that he was kind about it somehow made matters worse.
Richard wanted to argue. He wanted to shout. But he couldn’t do so without looking like some childish blowhard. And as her father very recently pointed out—Richard was no child.
“A man such as yourself should certainly settle down,” he’d pointed out. “It’s past time you started a family, I’d say.”
Just not with my daughter. That was the crux of it. Though her father had softened his refusal with words that were impossible to refute.
She deserves more. She deserves better.
She deserves younger and wealthier and a title and…
The list went on and on, it seemed, of all the things he was incapable of giving his beloved Miss Farthington.
No, Tessa. She’d told him to call her Tessa. And in his mind he’d been thinking of her as that until just now. Until it became abundantly clear that her father would not give permission for him to court his daughter.
Her father smiled at him now, a sad, resigned sort of smile that seemed to saymy apologiesat the same time as it screamedbut I will not budge.
The muscle in Richard’s jaw ticked again. If her father thought that he could be so easily sent away, he was mistaken. “My lord,” he started, leaning forward in his seat. “I understand your position. I do. But I beg that you try to see this from my point of view…”
I love your daughter.
No. He would not say it aloud. It was true. He’d known what this affliction was for months now, and he’d felt it shift from infatuation to something much more pure and meaningful with every new interaction he had with the lady.
It was more than an attraction. It was deeper than admiration. It was a mix of passion and respect and admiration that would drive a man to do something reckless.
“I mean to marry your daughter,” he said in a low tone.
Or…perhaps it was a growl. Whatever the sound was that escaped him, it had the older man blinking in surprise. “And I told you—”
“Just do not say no,” Richard hastened to say. “Let me have a chance. Much as you wish for your daughter’s contented future, surely you wish for her happiness as well, do you not?”
The old man grumbled in annoyance. “Of course I do.”
Richard shifted closer to the desk, on the edge of his seat with eagerness at this slight sign that her father might relent. “I’m not asking permission to marry her,” he said. “Not yet. But let me prove to you and to her that I can be the man who makes her happy.”
A silence fell.
A silence that was broken by the sound of something or someonein the hallway.
