Page 1 of The Mad Baron's Bride
Lies.
He had her full attention now, her eyes locked on his. He wondered how much more time he had. He’d been warned that the last dance was called the long minuet for good reason. Long enough to persuade this woman to be his?
Governess. His governess. Muriel’s governess.
“We’ve gone through a dozen women,” he admitted. That was counting the vicar’s daughter from Swaffham, who changed her mind before arriving, and the gentleman’s daughter from Greater Yarmouth, who turned around and climbed right back in the cart after she saw Holme House.
“That would make the next thirteen,” she murmured.
“Only a concern for the superstitious.” His chest grew heavy. If she were the superstitious sort, there was no hope here.
“Then you must find someone not easily frightened.”
Not her, he was certain. Mrs. Wroth seemed as steady as the sea. Moving forward, always, her rhythm unchanged, assured.
Now that was a foolish image. The sea changed all the time, from calm to roaring, from glassy pools to waves that pulled a man under. The ruins of the shipwrecks off the beach below his house gave proof of the tide’s implacable power.
If ever a woman could soothe a savage beast, Jack fancied, it was Mrs. Wroth.
“My aunt recommends I find a wife,” he blurted.
That proved precisely the wrong thing to say. She wheeled from him early and went back to her place in line, her face sharp and gleaming as diamond in the light from the chandeliers. Confused, the other women scurried to follow.
He noted this. Other women followed where Mrs. Wroth led.
He danced her way, curling his fingers into a fist behind his back. The minuet was a tortuous dance, much like wooing. The man pursued, circling, pleading, while the woman stepped forward, then back, never quite coming into his arms.
Not that Jack had much skill with wooing. Maybe his wife would have been happier with him if he had.
“It has been six years,” he said, surprised at the touch of desperation in his voice. Six years since one nightmare ended and another began. One burdened half-life giving way to another.
It had been many years, far longer than six, since Jack had harbored dreams for the future. What was it about Bath, about this ballroom—about this woman—that suddenly planted notions in his head? He hadn’t given a thought to awife.
“Oh, high time you remarried, then.”
Her voice cracked, and her lovely jaw drew tight, as if she clenched her teeth. She stared over his shoulder as they wove the figure, a step together, a step apart. How maddening she was.
“And do think,” she said, when she’d finished a turn with the ladies and come back to him, “a wife would resolve the governess problem nicely. You should have someone to teach and guide your daughter. As well as a housekeeper, a chatelaine, and a hostess. A cook, in a pinch, and possibly a secretary. Not to mention a body to warm your bed.”
Ah, God’s teeth. She was talking of beds. Jack’s mind fogged with the heat rolling through his body.
Devil take it, he hadn’t been interested in a woman for years, but with her floating about him, just beyond reach, he could barely keep himself under control. He wanted to yank her to him and mold every inch of her body to his.
In a crowded ballroom, sultry with the heat of many bodies and the smolder of wax candles.
Maybe he was what everyone said.
“That is what a wife does,” he said, trying to bring his mind back to the conversation. “All those things you say.”
It would do no good to yank this one about, he could see that. She had too strong a mind. If he wanted this woman he would have to woo her with words, lure her toward him with curiosity and interest and the offer of his own self.
Tempt her with promises, then keep those promises.
She turned away, arms lifted precisely before her, self-contained, wanting nothing. Certainly not him.
“All those things and more.” The words floated back to him. “An onerous list of tasks, wife.”
Onerous? “The most exalted status a woman can have,” he replied. Every woman sought to be a wife, did she not? He’d been taught since birth that the greatest gift a man possessed was the offer of his hand.
