Page 42 of Wild Lily
“All good to know.”
“But—”
“Yes?”
She rolled a shoulder. “I don’t like being pursued.”
Her bluntness delighted him. The fact that other men paid attendance to her did not. “I understand.”
“Do you? Have you ever been? Pursued, that is?”
“Oh, I have. Last Season.”
Eyes wide, she looked appalled. “Oh, come now. You cannot stop there. Who pursued you? Why? I must know the details. It’s so rarely that a man is courted.”
“I was not courted. I washunted.”
She rocked in her saddle with laughter. “But—but you escaped!”
He gave in to the admission with a grin. “I did. Don’t ask me how.”
“Oh, I know how. I see it in you. I have seen you do it here. Hilda Berghoff has an interest in you. And Priscilla Van de Putte.”
“You are observant.”She had been watching him? Intriguing.
“You have a mask. An expression of polite indifference.”
“Do I?”I’m not indifferent to you.
Their mounts stopped at the edge of a shallow ravine, their hooves stomping the earth.
Her blue gaze locked on his. “I don’t see it now.”
“No, you don’t.” This close, he couldn’t hide his interest in her. She was too perceptive, in any case. Little good it would do her. Or him, for that matter. He wouldn’t marry any woman solely for her money. He certainly had never even considered marrying Killian Hanniford’s girl for her wealth. His pride was too great to take a woman to his home and not want her physically, at the least. But his desire for Lily gnawed at him with growing hunger. He shifted in his saddle. Was his pride too big to bow to his father’s wish to marry someone soon? Could he rid himself of his enjoyment of Lily’s company? If he kept his distance, might he control his longing to possess her?
He spurred his horse to walk on.
She fell in beside him. The sun rose higher and she closed her eyes, her face to the sky. “I’m glad spring has arrived. I’ve been cold.”
The weather. He could discuss it without danger to his heart. “Do you like it here in England?”
“I’m used to warmer weather in Texas and Maryland. Even Paris seemed less forbidding.”
“Yet you’ll consider staying here, living here, despite the temperature?”
“If I’m given good reason, yes.”
“A husband?”
She fiddled with the scarf around her throat. “My father would like that, yes.”
“Have you found any man you favor?”Torrington, perhaps? Pinkhurst, God forbid?
She smiled weakly. “You want me to be blunt again?”
“I’m hoping for an honest answer.”
She examined him intricately. “All right. I haven’t been here long enough to appreciate any one man’s character.”
