“Well, I will require an heir.”
Alyssa frowned. She’d forgotten about that possibility.
He gave her a commiserating smile. “That is the purpose of marriage for people like us.”
“Yes, of course you’ll require an heir,” she murmured. “And a spare after that one.”
“Two sons is the standard for which every man hopes,” he said. “But I won’t demand it. One will be sufficient. And once the inconvenience of your confinement is over, you will naturally be free to pursue your own interests without the worry or responsibility of rearing a child. I can afford excellent care, and our child shall have the best nurses and nannies.”
“I wouldn’t mind the responsibility,” she murmured. “Or having a hand in the rearing of my child.”
“Then, of course, you would have a hand in it,” Griff assured her. “The decision would be yours.”
Alyssa smiled. “We’re speaking of having a child together, and I don’t yet know your Christian name.”
“It’s Griffin,” he answered. “My friends call me Griff. But you may call me anything you like.”
He grinned at her, and Alyssa felt her heart flutter at the warmth in his brilliant blue eyes.
“Some would call you mad,” Alyssa retorted. “I may be one of them. Tell me. Lord Abernathy, why me?”
“Because I have need of a wife, and you are the only young lady I’ve ever seen who made me believe I was meant to be her husband.”
Chapter Seven
“I have met the man I am going to marry. He comes with an old title and a neglected estate. He also comes with a commission in His Majesty’s Army. With luck, I shall become a viscountess and take up residence at his country estate in time to continue my experiments in propagating and transplanting Capability Brown’s variety of pink rhododendrons.”
—Lady Alyssa Carrollton, diary entry, 25 April 1810
As an answer, it was perfect.
Alyssa stared at Lord Abernathy’s enticing lips. What a charming actor he was turning out to be! His words, delivered in such an earnest manner, were meant to melt a young girl’s most tentative heart. Or an older, more experienced woman’s most deliberate heart. They were practiced, calculating words, cleverly disguised as sentiment, and they were—quite simply—the most eloquent argument for accepting a proposal she’d ever heard.
His words were so eloquent that Alyssa’s heart seemed to stop at the beauty of them. They were so eloquent that she came within a hair’s breadth of believing them.
The fact is that she would have believed him if she hadn’t heard the truth spoken from his own lips three-quarters of an hour earlier when she’d stood hidden by a row of potted palms and accidentally overhead the conversation between Viscounts Grantham and Abernathy and the Marquess of Shepherdston—the mysterious trio who referred to themselves as the Free Fellows League.
But she had overheard their conversation, and she knew that—his pretty words to the contrary—he had no interest in becoming any woman’s husband.
She knew because she’d heard him swear it.
And now, three-quarters of an hour later, Alyssa knew that she would be wise to ignore his eloquent words because she couldn’t possibly believe him. But there was a part of her—a secret, highly impractical, girlish, and romantic part of her—that thought how nice it would be to have a man like Griffin Abernathy whisper those words and to know in her heart of hearts that he meant them.
No wonder tenderhearted Lady Cowper had smiled broadly at her request for a discreet introduction and had obligingly brought Viscount Abernathy over to make her acquaintance. Lady Cowper no doubt knew that while Griffin Abernathy might not bear the lofty title of a duke or a marquess, he had charm and looks that were certain to make any young lady’s heart flutter.
Including the heart of an Incomparable Beauty.
Alyssa pursed her lips and wrinkled her brow in concentration. She didn’t want her heart to flutter. Possessing a heart that fluttered at every handsome gentleman’s pretty whispers was hazardous to one’s virtue and peace of mind. It was also most insensible. And Alyssa had earned her reputation for being the most sensible of girls. She didn’t want to succumb to the impractical notion of falling in love. She knew better. She didn’t want to think that she could be susceptible to his charm. She was under no illusions. She was different from the other virginal—the word stuck in her mind like a burr beneath her flesh—young ladies clamoring for attention. She hadn’t come to Almack’s in hopes of snaring a suitable husband. Alyssa had come kicking and screaming, protesting the injustice of being put on display and sold to the highest bidder like cattle at auction. Of all the young ladies present, she had thought herself the least likely to be noticed. She had thought herself the least likely to receive undue attention from any of the gentlemen she had spent her first season discouraging. And she had prayed that would continue to be the case. But Alyssa had discovered, to her mother’s eternal delight and to her eternal dismay, that she’d been named an Incomparable Beauty.
Unfortunately, Incomparable Beauties were expected to make extraordinary matches, and Alyssa wanted no part of it. She didn’t want a husband. Extraordinary or otherwise.
What she wanted—what she craved, above all else—was freedom. An escape from the unrelenting rounds of social calls and parties and routs and balls. And therein lay her dilemma, because the endless rounds of parties would continue unabated unless she found a way off the merry-go-round. There would be no respite from it until the season ended and no escaping into the garden or the stables.
The only hope for a way out was by accepting a proposal from a suitable gentleman.
The question was: suitable for whom? Her mama and papa? Or herself?
“Is that a yes? A no? Or an invitation?”