“If you are still unmarried by the time you are...twenty-five and I’m unmarried by thirty, we marry each other.”
She laughed. “You cannot be serious, Harry.”
He laughed to make her think he was not serious. “But of course I am,” he added with another laugh. “Do you agree?”
He signed the piece of paper and then handed the quill to her. Seeing her hesitation, he added, “You can use this as an engagement contract if you feel you are being forced to marry by your mother. She could scarcely say no to a marquess.”
“We truly have had too much to drink this afternoon,” she said, taking the quill from him. “I will agree to this madness. After all, there is little chance either of us still being unattached by that time.”
He watched her sign the paper as his smile slowly faded. There was no way of stopping her should she decide to marry someone else. Six years. How would he manage?
Some distance might help his cause and help change her mind. Perhaps he
should pay a visit to the estate in India as he’d planned two years ago before he met Louisa. Harry needed to make the trip once before he inherited to have a firsthand account of the estate.
He knew she would miss him, but she also might realize how much she loved him. She was far too logical to accept another man without conferring with him. She would want to verify that she had looked at every angle for a flaw in the man.
And if she did decide on a man, she would be forced to delay any wedding to write to him for advice. He could then return and sweep her off her feet.
India was so dreadfully far away. He would be gone for well over a year, maybe two. Harry swallowed back the bitter taste of trepidation. It was time to leave England.
Leave Louisa.
But only in preparation for a victorious return.
Chapter 1
Northumbria 1819
“DO NOT STOP NOW! YOU’RE almost there. There will be a fire and tea waiting for you.”
Louisa Drake knew no one would hear her, just as she knew no tea would be waiting for an uninvited guest. But she needed to say the words aloud as an affirmation to herself that she would make it to Northwood Park without collapsing into a snowdrift.
Lifting her head slightly, she noticed the estate coming into view, not that she could see much detail as the wind whipped the snow sideways. The house couldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile down the long drive. She continued to trudge through the snow determined to reach the house before sundown.
Or before she froze to death.
At this point, she wasn’t certain which might happen first.
“This is all your fault,” she yelled toward the house.
As expected, the house did not reply.
Everything, from her spinsterhood to her current predicament plodding through a blizzard alone was all his fault. Well, she supposed she couldn’t entirely blame her unmarried state on the occupant of the manor ahead. That had to do with her stubbornness and pickiness. But her reputation as one of the Daring Drake Sisters had at least a little to do with his family.
His father to be precise.
The rest she could blame on her mother and older sister, Tessa.
And she supposed she should take a small portion of culpability. Not that she’d done much, other than rejecting a viscount, and lately, a gentleman’s proposal. Most people just thought of her as the plain Drake sister who tended to stumble at inopportune times and who preferred books to people. Few knew of her friendship with the marquess, which would be considered unacceptable for an unmarried woman. These same small-minded people would never comprehend how a man and woman could be simply friends.
As the drive curved, she faced the arctic wind again. Her teeth chattered. “Damn you, Harry!”
She was truly ready to kill Harry for choosing to mourn his wife at his estate in Northumbria. The ducal estate in Worth was far closer to London and much easier to reach in winter.
After spending two days in a bumpy, cramped, and cold stagecoach, she arrived in the small village of Kirknewton two hours ago only to be told it was over two miles to the estate. Since the snow had just started, she assumed she would have plenty of time to reach Northwood Park before the storm worsened. Immediately after she left the village, the snow began to fall heavier, and the wind increased. Several inches had now reached the ground, making her trek miserable.
She should have stayed at the inn while she visited to prevent any scandalous talk should someone discover them. But the price of the coach, bribing a woman to pretend to be her aunt, and the meals on the journey had only left her enough money for the return trip. Surely Harry wouldn’t mind her staying with him. It was the end of December. Who would be traveling this far north?