Someone to Wed

She considered the question. “Life is fraught with risks,” she said. “All we can do to guard against them is make considered choices. Or we can make no choices at all and remain static in life. Even that is not really possible or without danger, though. Life changes about us and for us whether we wish it or not. I did not wish for my uncle and aunt to die. You did not wish to inherit all this.” She gestured about her with both hands.

“But if you make the wrong choice of husband,” he said, “you will have lost everything—your independence, your money, your happiness.”

“Oh, no, Lord Riverdale,” she said. “I would not turn all my money over to you with my person on our marriage. I am not an utter fool, or a fool at all. We would both sign a carefully worded contract before we wed.”

Sometimes he found her chilling. Often he found her chilling. But would he be feeling so chilled if this were a man speaking? Her father or uncle or guardian? And what did it say about him that the answer was no? He would expect to negotiate and sign a marriage settlement with a prospective father-in-law, after all. He would expect that man to guard the future interests of his daughter.

“You would keep hold of the purse strings, then?” he asked her. “And dole out money as you saw fit?”

“Absolutely not.” She turned and began to make her way back toward the house with her characteristic manly—though somehow not inelegant—stride. “How would I be able to tolerate a marriage in which I had made my husband my pensioner or my slave? I would not, just as I would not be able to tolerate one in which I had been made my husband’s slave. No man would marry me if I did not have money and lots of it, Lord Riverdale, but I have no wish whatsoever to buy a husband and then hold him in thrall for the rest of his life.”

They proceeded some distance in silence. “You have explained that you wish to marry because you want to be a woman as well as a person,” he said. “What does being a woman mean to you, Miss Heyden?” It was perhaps an unfair question. He would not have dreamed of asking it of anyone else. But she was different from every other woman he had met, and he was, God help him, considering marrying her.

She drew a breath, let it go, drew another. “I want to be kissed,” she said primly, on her dignity. “I know almost nothing of what lies beyond kisses. But I want it. All of it. And I want a child. Children. I received warmth and love in abundance from my aunt and uncle, but perversely I longed for other children. Siblings. Friends. Now everything has gone with them. I want human warmth again, but I want more than warmth this time. I want … Well, I do not know quite how else to put it into words. I am naive and probably sound pathetic, but you asked the question, and you have the right to an answer.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Baldly put, she wanted sex. She had decided to buy what she wanted, in the belief that she could not have it any other way because of that damned facial blemish. A man could buy it easily enough whenever he wished without also saddling himself with marriage. But she was not a man despite the fact that she was a proud, wealthy businesswoman. Besides, it was not only sex she wanted. It was human warmth in the form of a sexual relationship. She wanted far more than she seemed to realize. She wanted love, and, heaven help her, she thought it could be bought.

He felt chilled—again. How could he possibly offer her a fair exchange for what she would bring him? He could appreciate her beauty and elegance despite the blemish, and he could admire her independence and intelligence. But … where was the attraction? He could feel none. She wanted to be kissed. Even that he could not imagine doing.

“Where do we go from here, Lord Riverdale?” she asked as they approached the house. “You have seen me. I have seen your house and part of the park and learned something of your whole estate. We have conversed and become somewhat acquainted. Will it now be your turn to visit me and then mine to come here again? Time is of value. We will both need to get on with the job of finding other partners if we are not to find them in each other. Is there some point to proceeding, or is there not?”

So she was going to press the issue, was she? But she was quite right about time. When he had come here, to see how his new steward was settling, to assess with him what needed doing and what might be done with his limited resources and what must be given highest priority, he had intended to stay only until the end of this week. He had planned then to go to London, where his mother and sister were to join him for Easter. But he had already made the decision to delay his departure until next week, after Easter, and had written to his mother. He had even added that he was not quite sure about next week. He had not explained the reason because he had not known if it was one worth sharing. He had written something vague about the press of business, and in a sense he had not been lying. It was his business to marry a wife who would give him heirs and bring him funds. It was a ghastly way to look upon his own future and that of the young lady he would marry, and for a moment he was engulfed in self-loathing.

“Miss Heyden,” he said, coming to an abrupt halt with her at the foot of the steps to the front doors and noticing irrelevantly that there was grass pushing up through the seams between each rise. “There must be affection or the hope of some sort of affectionate regard. I will not call it love. That is for poets and dreamers. But there must be … affection. I cannot stomach the prospect of a marriage without. Is there any remote chance that there can be affection between us?” He could not imagine it for himself, but what about her? And if her answer was yes, was he willing to try to match her hope?

“It is what I meant by human warmth,” she said. “I do not know if it is possible between us. I am well aware of our differing perspectives. I look at you and see extraordinary beauty. You look at me and see … this.” She indicated the left side of her face with one hand. “It would be difficult for you to—”

“Damn your face!” he exclaimed, and then stared at her in dismay as her hand froze in place an inch or so from her cheek and her eyes widened. “Oh, dash it all, I do beg your pardon. I did not intend that at all as it sounded. I meant—”

But he was stopped by an unexpected sight and sound. She was laughing. “I thought you were all gentlemanly perfection,” she said. “How delightful it is to discover that you are human. What did you mean?”

He remembered then the way she had appeared for a brief few moments when he had taken her by surprise at Withington—flushed and bright eyed and slightly disheveled and breathless—and pretty. And he looked at her now, surprised into laughter by his outburst, and it struck him that it was possible to feel a twinge of attraction toward her. But only when she was startled into allowing glimpses into a self she normally kept well hidden.

“Your face is just your face,” he said. “It is not you. And it is not nearly as unsightly as you think it is. You have allowed it to define you, and that fact has surely not served you well. I do beg your pardon, Miss Heyden. And for my language too. But in fearing that your face will preclude you from all human warmth and affection for the rest of your life, you cut yourself off from those very things.”

“Could you ever feel an affection for me?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I do not know,” he said. “I honestly do not, Miss Heyden. And I will not feign an affection just to convince you that your face does not repulse me.”