He didn't look back at her. "I think I had better make more certain of my companion's feelings, don't you?"
"Yes! Because I wouldn't think of marrying you." She snapped it, and then she was sorry because his hands stopped on the horse's tackle for a moment, and she actually entertained the thought that he cared—that he truly wished to marry her.
But he turned around, and there was the familiar laughter in his eyes. "Forgive me?" he asked. "You know I'm damnably protective of your reputation, Imogen. I seem to have taken to this guardianship business with a mite too much enthusiasm."
"Guardians are not required to propose marriage to their wards in order to save their reputations," she said severely. But she was starting to understand now. He'd caught her looking at Gabe in the morning—and just as surely as had Josie, he knew that she wanted his brother. And he'd also seen that his brother was uninterested in her. It was humiliating.
But Rafe was still talking easily. "I've made up my mind that the next time I ask someone to marry me, I shall know the answer beforehand."
"I'm sure you'll find many women who will make it all too clear that they would like to be your duchess," Imogen said, a touch acidly.
"Do you think that Gillian would care for the position?" came his voice from behind her.
"Who?"
"Miss Pythian-Adams."
"Do you wish to marry her?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"You're not going off like a piece of meat," she remarked. "You could afford to wait for a bit before finding a wife."
And then before she realized what was happening, strong arms came around her from the back and pulled her against his body. She stood, stock-still, trying not to melt into him and turn her mouth up to his.
"I like kissing you," he said. "It's a strange thought, admittedly, but true. I like the way you taste."
And then she did turn her head, just to see what the look was in his eyes, and this kiss was almost like one of Gabe's.
Then it was over, and he pulled a strand of grass from her hair. "Please note," he said, "that no proposal of marriage will follow this inappropriate kiss."
Imogen tried to think of something clever to say— something witty about being glad to offer him an experience such as he hadn't had in ten years—but nothing came to mind.
They walked over to her horse without another word. After he'd thrown her up onto her horse, there was just one thought that she couldn't brush away.
Both Gabe and Rafe made her weak at the knees with their kisses. It must be a family trait. Or if it wasn't their innate ability, it must be that she was particularly vulnerable to those kisses. More the fool she! Why, it was positively incestuous to be kissing the two brothers at once.
Why was she kissing Rafe? Why on earth would her guardian have kissed her at all?
He answered that. Rafe looked over and said: "Are you feeling better about your husband, then, Imogen?"
"Don't laugh about that!" she said, without thinking about it.
"I wasn't." He said it quietly, without a trace of that insouciant grin he had earlier.
She could tell he wasn't. And of course that explained the kiss. Of course it did. He was wiping away the tears, and the memory of Draven. Very kind of him.
There was only one problem with his plan.
She could remember Draven as clearly as ever. She remembered every kiss they shared in their brief two weeks of marriage (six), every act of love they shared in the same two weeks (seven), and every time he rolled her over in a bed of flowers and kissed her to make her stop crying (none).
Just at the end of the road, Rafe looked at her and then leaned over his horse, and they raced down the curve of the road leading to Holbrook Court. Alas, the bouquet of cow parsley—or hogweed—intended for Josie couldn't take the gale, and tumbled away on the wind, rough yellow petals streaming behind them.
Chapter 24
The Virtues—or Lack Thereof— of Creatures Such as Dorimant
Gillian Pythian-Adams was in a foul mood. She scowled at her own reflection, even though her mother had strong views about wrinkles being the inevitable result of bad temper. Then she stopped scowling and readjusted her elegant cottage bonnet.
It was pale sage green and made her hair look as red as a deep port. '"Lovely hair," she said aloud, a little savage mockery in her voice. She might as well compliment herself, because at this rate no husband would say it to her.
Her walking costume was a slightly darker shade of the same green, and buttoned up the front with Spanish buttons that made her appear more generous in the bosom than she was in truth.
"Lovely…" But her voice died out.
It wasn't that she was in a frenzy to marry. She could see perfectly well that a woman's life was a great deal more comfortable once she married. But since her grandmother had been kind enough to leave her a dowry that converted to a personal estate if she was unmarried at age thirty, the case was not desperate.
It just seemed that the moment she turned her eyes on someone, an Essex sister was there before her. Not just any Essex sister either: Imogen.
She hadn't really wanted Draven Maitland, mind you. She could admit that the engagement was a huge mistake. She had learned her lesson: do not engage oneself to a fool because his mother holds the mortgage to the family's estate.
Although one had to admit that it was nice when she received the mortgage back after Draven fled with Imogen.
Of course she wanted nothing to do with the depraved brother of the duke, for all she had enjoyed his kiss. It served as a powerful example of why men were able to turn women's heads and make them do foolish things, like running away with a footman. She'd always wondered about that, but after kissing Mr. Spenser, she didn't wonder anymore.
Not that she had the option of running away with Mr. Spenser, because Imogen had scooped him up directly. If Gillian actually turned her eyes to a footman, obviously Imogen would beckon him with a crook of her little finger.
But she had thought that the duke was eligible for matrimony, now that he was sober. She and Imogen had even discussed that fact: a sort of dividing of territories conversation, now she thought about it. So why were the duke's eyes following Imogen around the room?
Because Imogen was a magnet for men who interested Gillian, that's why.
Gillian was clearly a failed magnet for those same men. She scowled again. Who cared about wrinkles when there was no one left to admire her?
Lady Ancilla poked her head into the room. "Are you ready to go, darling?"
"Of course, Mama," Gillian said. But she stayed another moment, staring at the mirror. She wasn't an antidote. True, some people didn't care for red hair. But in secret, she herself liked red hair. Hers was a nice strawberry color, and it curled just where she wanted it to. And she had everything else that seemed to add up to the package men wanted to marry: green eyes, dimples, and a large enough bosom. Even a dowry.
It wasn't that men didn't want to marry her. It was that they didn't want to marry her once they met Imogen Essex.
"Gillian!" her mother called from the corridor.
"Coming!" Gillian snatched up her gloves and ran into the corridor.
A moment later the two of them joined Lady Griselda in one of the duke's carriages. Gillian's mother was quite interested to hear that the housemaids had finished the theater curtain.