A Proper Lord's Wife (Properly Spanked Legacy 2)

She leaned to show him the pale line where the fountain’s edge had been extended several inches with decorative marble work.

“It’s far enough out that frogs can’t hop in anymore. If they try, all they do is hit their heads on the underside, and decide to go somewhere else.”

“That’s amazing.” It was amazing, really, to hear a young woman speak at such length about frogs. At least she was looking at him now.

“It was too sad before, to see them floating about the fountain belly up.” She shuddered, then brightened. “As for the fish you mentioned, we have three great, massive ponds at our country home in Reading, and there are ever so many fish in there.”

He hadn’t the heart to tell her he’d only been joking about the fish, so he was obliged to listen to her list off the numerous varieties that made their homes in Lord Mayhew’s ponds. He tried to look interested, while picturing, for his own entertainment, how horrified her parents would be to know their daughter was chattering to him about frogs and fish in this beginning stage of their acquaintance.

Marlow and August would howl at this story later. The naturalist, indeed.

“Shall we move on?” he asked when she came to the end of her fish monologue. “See more of the gardens?”

“Of course.”

“Are you cold?”

“No, the sun warms me well enough.”

He offered his arm again, and she took it more readily this time. They walked in silence for a moment or two, then Jane let out a small sigh. “I’m sorry I went on about the fountain,” she said. “And the ponds. It’s just that I know so much about fish.”

He must not laugh. He would not laugh. If he did, it would be the maniacal laughter of a man who’d mistakenly engaged himself to the most bizarre woman in England.

“You may speak of whatever you wish,” he said. “I have heard from some friends that you’re a great lover of nature.”

He felt her fingers tense upon his sleeve. Well, she had spent the past ten minutes going on about aquatic animals. She hadn’t scrabbled about in any of the garden beds yet. Perhaps she wished to, and barely restrained herself.

“I do enjoy nature,” she said at last. “I find it very interesting.”

“In what way?”

She turned toward him, thinking. “In the way that it never stays the same. There’s always a mystery to it. Nature is connected to life. It is life, don’t you imagine? And look how complicated that can be. Life, I mean.”

Her face grew animated as she warmed to her topic. There must have been some surprise on his face, no matter how he tried to hide it, for she followed up weakly.

“Perhaps I think about these things too much.”

“Not at all.” He cast about for a proper response and hit upon a remembrance from his school days. “According to Socrates, an unexamined life is not worth living.”

“Ah, Socrates.” Her smile returned. “He believed nature was akin to divinity. It’s telling that so many philosophers have concerned themselves with nature’s mysteries. It’s endlessly interesting, don’t you think?”

I think, Lady Jane, that Lord Hobart probably lost his nerve after just such a conversation as this. He’d met Hobart on a few occasions, and remembered him as a small-minded fellow, unlikely to bear much interest in the mysteries of nature. For Townsend, the most interesting parts of nature revealed themselves in the bedroom. One found mystery and divinity indeed, if one bedded down with an adequately voracious woman.

A dangerous line of thought, that, as he strolled with his maidenly fiancée. She was still going on about Socrates, God save him.

“I suppose I am talking too much and behaving like a bluestocking,” she said, as if she’d heard his thought. “There, I shouldn’t have said that either.” Her ladylike mask fell away, revealing more honest anxiety. “I must admit I’m not the best at…”

She paused, biting her lip, and glanced back toward the house.

“What are you not the best at, Lady Jane? Vapid conversation? Have you studied philosophy when you ought to have been perfecting your witty banter?”

He was teasing, but she answered with a serious frown. “I was meant to marry a family friend, so I haven’t had much practice with courtship.” She gave him a sideways look. “I suppose you’re used to more well-spoken women.”

“If by well-spoken, you mean capable of prattling on about absolutely nothing for the better part of an hour, then yes. That’s not a difficult art. You can learn to be better at it if you like, Lady Jane, but when we’re alone, you may speak as you wish.”

What a kind and husbandly thing to say. He was warming to her strangeness, against all odds. She’d never have the grace or beauty of Ophelia, but she wasn’t unpleasant. They would rub along together well enough if she wasn’t a bore.