Page 7 of An Affair with a Notorious Heiress
Tillie wanted to shake her sister. None of those things created happiness. Oh, they might lighten her mood for a few minutes but they didn’t leave one happy for long. Chocolates disappeared, allowance dwindled, and frocks faded. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Rexton gave very little reaction, but he seemed equally unimpressed by her sister’s musings.
“Surely you require more than that,” he said flatly, without judgment or censure.
“I’m relatively easy to please.”
“A woman shouldn’t be.”
His words surprised Tillie. Did he truly believe that? Did he not want a biddable female? What was the game he played? She gave up trying to appear as though she wasn’t looking at him and stared at him directly. “Why would you seek to make your courtship more difficult?” she blurted, truly curious.
He shifted his attention to her. “Not more difficult. More challenging. There is a difference.”
“She’s offering an easy road. Why not take it?”
“Because it would bring me no pleasure.”
That was when she knew the Marquess of Rexton was a man who liked to win, who thrived on competition. And who sought pleasure in all aspects of his life. Pleasure, and danger, and gratification. If he hadn’t been born into the aristocracy, if he hadn’t been born into wealth, influence, and privilege, if he’d been born into a hardscrabble life in America, he’d have been the sort to forge an empire, to carry others on his back, to stand his ground, to never back down. She was not at all pleased at the way that knowledge made it difficult for her to draw in breath, made her consider how fortunate any woman would be to stand beside him.
“What should I require, my lord?” Gina asked, obviously oblivious to all the messages the man across from her was sending, to the turmoil wreaking havoc within Tillie.
“Love.”
He said it so simply as though it was easily given, easily received.
“Most men avoid love like the plague,” Tillie felt obligated to point out, hating the resentment lacing through her voice. Liking even less his slow perusal, as though he could see the tiny fissures where her heart had cracked day after day, night after night until she’d feared it would shatter into nothing. If he asked her about Landsdowne, about their marriage, about her relationship with him, she was going to leap from the carriage and march home. Why had she even intruded on the conversation? Her role was one of silence and observation.
“Few men have grown up around the exemplary example I did,” he said quietly.
The breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding eased out of her when he didn’t take the conversation in the direction she’d been dreading.
“Do your parents love each other?” Gina asked.
“Immensely. They taught me to never take it for granted, that if you are fortunate to possess it, you nurture it. I daresay, my father goes to sleep each night pondering what he can do upon awakening to ensure my mother is grateful he shares her life.”
“Does your mother do the same?”
“Love comes more easily to women, I think. It’s more natural. Men have to work a bit harder at it, especially as we’re not very demonstrative as a whole. So if you can snag a man’s heart, Miss Hammersley, the frocks, chocolates, and allowance will surely follow. You need not insist upon them.”
“Have you any advice for snagging a man’s heart?” Gina asked.
“Be yourself.”
“But beware, sweeting,” Tillie added. “For men seldom are.”
“You haven’t a very favorable opinion of our gender,” Rexton said, his smile rueful.
“Prove me wrong, my lord.”
“I may just do that, Lady Landsdowne.”
She did wish she’d kept her mouth shut as she’d never before had the sense she’d just issued an irrefutable challenge which he had accepted with a challenge of his own—and if she wasn’t careful, she could find herself losing not only her pride but discovering her heart, too, had been part of the wager.
He had to quit engaging Lady Landsdowne, but he found her so much more fetching than her sister. She wasn’t timid or shy, and she didn’t retreat. But her eyes never sparkled and her lips never curved up into a genuine smile of joy; he had an irrational need to see both. Had she been as without guile as her sister when she’d married Downie?
As they entered the park, he became aware of her slight stiffening as though she were bracing herself for a blow to her midsection. Surely she hadn’t avoided the park since her scandal. While Miss Hammersley fairly sat on the edge of her seat, glancing around eagerly, striving to determine who might be in the vicinity, Lady Landsdowne seemed to take great interest in the knot of his neck cloth.
He wanted her at ease again, wanted her comfortable enough to challenge him. Which was ridiculous. She was not the one to whom he should direct his interest. If he wasn’t careful, she was going to advise her sister to cast him aside immediately. That would prove disastrous for Miss Hammersley. If the bachelors thought Rexton would dismiss the girl so easily after only one outing they weren’t likely to give her much credence as a possible wife. He needed someone to take interest in her so he could pack up his courting manners.
He forced himself to focus solely on her and to keep the conversation relatively neutral so the sister wasn’t interfering. They spoke of flowers and fauna and whenever he could work in a laugh he made sure it carried on the wind to gents trotting by on fine horses or in speedy carriages. He kept his features relaxed, and a pleasant smile on his face, portraying a man on the verge of being forever smitten. He was grateful Miss Hammersley was occupied with taking in their surroundings and didn’t seem particularly affected by his feigned interest. He might have been insulted by her lack of attention, except vanity had never been one of his shortcomings. He was actually glad she wasn’t likely to mistake his performance as true devotion.
