Leave a Widow Wanting More by Charlie Lane
Chapter 25
If the conversation currently happening were not so damned important, Henry would not have been able to concentrate. The air in his study, his chair most especially, smelled of Sarah. He focused the control he lacked around his wife, steepled his fingers, and gave the young earl sitting across the desk from him a predatory smile.
“You’ve been courting my daughter for over a year now.”
“I’m not sure I would call it courting, my lord. We’ve been getting to know one another. Miss Cavendish has been a source of comfort for me during a, um, time of grief.”
“Then you’re toying with her. She seems to think you’re courting her.”
Lord Stonefield frowned. “I would never toy with a woman. It’s not seemly.”
Zeus! What self-respecting man said it’s not seemly? He sounded like someone’s maiden aunt. Or a governess. “Stonefield, do you have any plans to court my daughter?”
“I, um, well, I—”
“Spit it out!”
“Yes!”
“Better. Why, then, the prevarication about courting her?”
His face smooshed together. He was generally a handsome man, Henry supposed, but right now he looked like a frog. An uncomfortable frog with shirt points sticking almost into his face. A damned dandy. Not good enough for Ada.
Finally, the frog spoke. “Is Miss Cavendish usually so demonstrative? In public. It’s not quite the thing, is it?”
Henry sat back in his chair. He’d been afraid of this. He’d let his daughters run wild for so long, any attempts now to navigate proper society would be difficult at best, disastrous in all likelihood.
Stonefield leaned forward as if confiding in Henry. “Two years or so ago, she was not so, ah, voluble. She was all that was kind and calming after my father’s death.”
Henry grunted.
“Your wife …” Stonefield looked over Henry’s shoulder and out the window.
“What about her?”
“Er, um, she is, of course, of good stock?”
Henry leaned forward and said in his lowest, steadiest voice, “Pardon me?”
“It’s just, I mean that I assume, you’ve chosen a wife to guide your daughters through the process of courtship and marriage.”
Henry concentrated on not grinding his teeth. “Perhaps I married for myself, not my daughters.”
Stonefield cocked his head to the side, finally meeting Henry’s gaze. “Why would you do that? No, it makes more sense to marry for your daughters’ sakes.”
Damn the pup! He spoke the truth of the situation, but it rankled somehow. “I do not like you.” Why not admit it?
Startled, Stonefield lurched back in the chair. “I am sorry to have offended.”
“That’s all you have to say? I tell you, flat out, that I dislike you, and you apologize?”
“Wha-what should I say, Lord Eaden?”
Henry stood and walked around his chair to stare out the window into the garden. He needed this conversation with the young earl, even if Ada hated him for it. He’d found out many crucial truths in a very short time.
Truth 1. Lord Stonefield did not have a backbone.
Truth 2. Lord Stonefield was in the market for a passive, malleable, proper wife.
Truth 3. Lord Stonefield would, ultimately, be displeased with Ada as a wife.
Truth 4. Lord Stonefield didn’t deserve Ada.
Henry sighed and turned back to the young man. “And you still wish to court my daughter?”
Stonefield’s brow furrowed in thought. He nodded, slowly, his shirt points digging into his jaw. “Yes. I do. I owe her much.”
“My daughter is not passive.”
Lord Stonefield blinked.
“She is not silent.”
Lord Stonefield shifted in his chair.
“She knows how to shoot a gun.” Not as well as her sister, but hardly a relevant point at the moment.
“But she’s good with children, yes? She’s been mothering your children since she was little more than a child herself.”
“Yes.” Henry felt a ping of guilt.
Stonefield nodded and stood. “Then I wish to court her. Other, undesirable traits can be modified with time.”
Thiswas the man his daughter had chosen? Inconceivable. How could Ada not see it? Not see him for what he was? An unbearable fop, a pompous ass, a posturing fool. She had a sharp mind! She should be able to see! Sarah suggested Ada did not love the fellow, but that display in the dining room … what else could have motivated it?
Even if she did love the man, Ada would see sense. Once she’d had a London season, once she had other men to compare Stonefield to, she’d see the folly of such an alliance. Sarah would guide her.
“You may court her, but you may not offer for her until after the upcoming season.” Yes, a perfect solution. Ada could not call him a bully now. The designation had been like a scorpion’s sting, unexpected, painful.
Stonefield nodded, as much as possible in his starched cravat. “Perfect. I could not abide a, um, short courtship to be begin with. People would talk.”
They’d talk all right, about how this weak-chinned milksop had managed to catch a fiery lass like Ada. But it wouldn’t come to that. Ada would have a season. Then she would know what Henry did. Her future did not lie with Lord Stonefield. “We’re done here, Stonefield.”
The earl scrambled to his feet. “Yes, of course. Thank you for your time.”
“You do realize you rank above me, yes?”
Stonefield flushed. “I’m not yet used to my role, I’m afraid. I didn’t expect to inhabit it for some time to come.”
Henry didn’t want to feel pity for the dandified earl who considered himself good enough for Ada. But he did. He knew the pain of losing those you loved.