Page 2 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
He raised his glass in a toast. “The moon never tells, either.”
Her gaze centered on his hand and his drink. “May I?”
“Of course.”
She took the crystal with eagerness and pressed it to her lips. Her full pink lips. She drank deeply. “Sorry,” she said, when she’d had her fill and pressed a fingertip to each corner of her mouth. “I’ve made you seek another.”
When she handed it back to him, he tipped the nearly empty thing and drained the rest. “I like a woman with enthusiasm for her choice of liquors.”
She snorted in laughter and it brought delight to her lovely face. “But not too much enthusiasm.”
“Never. That way…” He pursed his lips. “Disaster.”
“Do you escape disaster in there?” She tipped her head toward the throng that chatted and whirled about inside the gilt-edged ballroom of the Duke and Duchess of Edington.
“I question if it is disaster. Yet. And you?”
“Mine may be already calling at my door.”
“A man you don’t wish to call?” He’d met so many rich American girls and understood their plight to be dangled before the likes of eligible British males with titles. Two of his aunts had once been women who’d faced similar challenges. One of his cousins, too. All had survived the rigors of the chase and married men they adored.
“A man I don’t wish to wed.”
“Ah. Tell him no.”
“That’s not easy to do,” she tossed back, anger in the set of her mouth.
“I know. But it’s best. You should not marry without full confidence in the prospect.” He should listen to his own advice.
“My father wants it.”
Nate gave a rueful chuckle. “But he doesn’t have to live with the chap.”
She frowned and turned to grip the railing. “That’s what I’ve said.”
“Does your father gain something from the marriage?”
On that she stilled. “What do you mean?”
“Why this man? Why not another? One you like? Love.”
“I don’t like or love anyone. I don’t want to do that.”
“You don’t want to marry or there is someone back home who—”
“No. None of that. I want to go to college.”
“Good of you.” He applauded women with ambition. “What will you study?”
“I want to become a doctor. And he won’t let me.”
“Your father doesn’t approve of education for women?”
“He wants the notoriety of my marriage.”
“I see.” His Aunt Lily had taken nursing courses when she was in her forties. As Duchess of Seton, she shocked society but she cared not. Nor did her husband, his uncle, the eighth Duke. She still nursed the sick and dying in her husband’s estates. His Aunt Ada, the wife of a noted Member of Parliament, was an active campaigner for women’s right to vote. His distant cousin, Marianne, the Duchess de Remy et Princess d’Aumale, was a famous painter of women and children. And his other aunt, celebrated novelist Camille Hanniford, worked with Ada and Lily to lobby Parliament to increase women’s rights and their health care and lying-in hospitals. “What does your beau say about your desire?”
“Lord Carterham?”
