Pursuing Lord Pascal (Dashing Widows 4)

She folded her arms and regarded him with displeasure. “You’re very highhanded.”

“Get used to it.”

The awful truth was that Amy found his arrogance exciting. She didn’t want a man who rode roughshod over her. But she respected Gervaise’s willingness to stand up to her and demand an answer. Once she’d settled into Warrington Grange, she’d become the stronger half of the partnership. Wilfred had followed her every directive. As a result, she’d spent most of her marriage feeling very lonely.

She realized with a shock that when she was with Gervaise, she never felt lonely.

Now she had to deal with this new masterful version of her lover. Heat swirled in her veins, and a familiar sinful longing weighted the base of her belly. What a wanton he made her. She liked this new, daring version of Amy Mowbray.

It was as much to deny that stirring interest as to bring the difficult conversation to a close that she spoke. “We should go. I can hear music. Supper must be over.”

He studied her with an unreadable expression before giving her a brief bow as if they returned to the formality of their early meetings. “As you wish.”

Actually it wasn’t in any way as she wished. Wicked girl she was, she wanted to stay here with Gervaise and lose herself in mindless pleasure.

More. She wanted him to hustle her away and persuade her with kisses, until she forgot what an important decision marriage was. She had a horrible feeling that if she thought too hard, she’d turn into a coward and scuttle back to obscurity—and safety—in Leicestershire.

Suddenly that seemed a sad outcome to these recent, exciting weeks.

“Am I…am I tidy?” she asked in a reedy voice, as he shrugged on his coat and smoothed his hair. The efficiency of his movements reminded her, as if she needed reminding, that here was a man used to managing amorous intrigues.

His forbidding air softened at her hesitant question, and she sucked in her first full breath since he’d proposed. “Come here,” he said gently.

She stood in front of him. He tucked away a couple of stray tendrils of hair and straightened her pretty new dress.

“Will I do?”

“You’ll dazzle them all.” He leaned forward to give her another of those devastating kisses. He didn’t seem angry anymore, but she couldn’t forget his ultimatum.

Through the closed door, she heard a quadrille. “I won’t dazzle Mr. Harslett. I promised him this dance.”

Gervaise’s finger traced a burning trail along her jaw. “I wish you could dance with nobody but me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you likely to become one of those odiously possessive husbands who snaps like a grumpy dog if his wife flirts with another man?”

His expression turned wry. “You know, I think I am. Does that mean you won’t have me?”

“I’m better off knowing,” she said lightly. The urge to say yes struggled against the bonds of her prudence. A lifetime with Gervaise? It sounded like heaven. But it seemed despite tonight’s rashness, she remained by nature cautious. “Shall we go?”

“Let me check if the corridor is empty.” He unlocked the door and edged it open.

She’d started forward when he hauled her back into his arms. They both heard the nearby voices. Amy’s heart slammed to a stop, then raced like a runaway horse. She buried her face in Gervaise’s chest, as he edged deeper into the shadows behind the open door.

“I can’t believe he’d choose her rather than you. You’re accounted a diamond of the first w

ater,” an affected, very young female voice said in the hallway. Amy didn’t recognize the speaker, but she immediately identified the girl who answered.

“He wants her fortune. Mamma says I’ve had a lucky escape,” Lucy Compton-Browne stated with her usual self-satisfaction. Meg had invited the Compton-Browne girl to tea several times. Amy had never much liked her. Or her pushy mother.

“Do you think so? He’s so very, very handsome, and everyone says he’s a great catch. Are you sure he has no money?”

Amy felt Gervaise’s body turn rigid with tension, and his grip on her tightened.

“Mamma heard it from one of his neighbours, an old school friend who regularly corresponds with her. It’s not in general circulation, but it soon will be. People can never keep a story like that secret. A storm last January laid waste to his estates, and apparently he was already up to his ears in debt after a couple of bad harvests. He needs a rich wife, and he needs her quickly.”

“Oh, that’s a pity when he’s such a gorgeous man. If he proposed to me, I don’t think I’d care that he’s a fortune hunter.”

“Have some pride, Arabella. Anyway, Lord Pascal has set his sights on Lady Mowbray—he must have decided a lonely widow without a watchful mamma would be easier prey. I almost feel sorry for her.”