Bride Enchanted (2 page)

E
ve was ready to see the man who had asked to court her. She thought she couldn't look better. Her green gown, sashed with rose and patterned with tiny yellow roses, was her best. A darling new bonnet covered her curly hair, and she held a green parasol, for support. Because although she was ready, it was the sort of readiness she might feel before jumping off a high wall. She thought she'd land right, but there was always the possibility she'd come to grief. She didn't want to break anything, particularly not her heart.

She had to see him. She
wanted
to see him. The whole thing disturbed her because the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. She feared it was a joke. She was afraid it wasn't. She stood by the front parlor window, a margin of the drape pulled back an inch so she could see the street, but no one in the street could see her. She waited,
her expression already schooled to be polite and bland. She couldn't be more ready, or more terrified. She had to gather her courage and speak bluntly with him to find out why he was courting her.

Surely, they could speak more easily if she wasn't as surprised and overawed by him as she'd been last time. Definitely, she could talk more rationally if they weren't dancing. And certainly, he'd be less exotic by daylight.

He wasn't.

Her brother, who had walked soft-footed to stand behind her, whistled. Her shoulders jumped and she swung around, one hand on her rapidly beating heart. “Don't do that!” she whispered fiercely. “You frightened me half out of my wits! What are you whistling about anyway?” she asked crossly.

“You ask? Look at him,” he said.

She did. Mr. Aubrey Ashford was something to see. He handed the reins for the two beautiful matched chestnuts that drew his high-perch phaeton to the boy who had jumped down from the back of it. Then he looked up at the house. He was immaculately dressed in a brown jacket, with dun breeches and shining boots, and a high beaver hat perched jauntily on his black hair. He carried a silver-headed walking stick. Never had a man
looked less in need of one. He wasn't sportsman tan, or poetic pallid. Instead, he glowed. He paused. She could swear his gaze arrowed to where she was. A small smile quirked his shapely mouth, and he strode forward. She dropped the corner of the drapery and tried to catch her breath.

“Damnation!” she breathed. “He looks better in the light!”

Her brother frowned.

“Look at him,” she said crossly. “Now why would
that
come courting me?”

“Maybe he has some disgusting habits?” Sheridan asked.

She gave him a withering look.

“Well, if he don't, then I agree,” Sheridan said heartlessly. “It don't make sense. You have to find out. Maybe he did lose a bet.”

She nodded, feeling better and worse at having her fears confirmed. She drew on her gloves. “You can bet I will,” she said shakily.

“Mr. Aubrey Ashford,” their butler said, coming into the front salon.

The man behind him walked into the room, smiled at Sheridan, looked searchingly at Eve, and then executed a graceful bow. “Good morning, Miss Faraday,” he said in his melodious voice.

She stood still, barely managing to remember to nod a bow to him. Sheridan just stared at him.

“I am Ashford. You are…?” he asked Sheridan, raising a thin black eyebrow.

“This is my brother, Sheridan,” Eve said.

Sheridan bowed, while staring, like an automaton.

“Then do call me Aubrey. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sheridan,” Aubrey said.

That seemed to break the spell. “That's a bang-up rig you have there,” Sheridan said eagerly. “Your team looks like prime goers too.”

“Thank you,” Aubrey said. “I'm pleased with them. And I thank you again because you give me an easy way to make my proposal.”

Sister and brother went still again, eyes wide.

Aubrey smiled. “Since it was such a fine day, Miss Faraday, I thought we might go for a ride around the park.”

“Oh,” she said with relief.
That
kind of proposal. She thought about it. It was a way to get away from her brother's insatiable curiosity. He'd be sitting between them all morning if he could. But it was also unnerving to think of being alone with Ashford. Still, because of the things she had to say, she decided it was for the best. “Why, yes, so it is a lovely day,” she said. “I'd be delighted. But will there be room for my maid?”

“If not,” Sheridan put in hurriedly, “I can hang on to the back.”

“But we'll be driving in an open phaeton,” Aubrey said. “And so there's no need for a chaperone, Miss Faraday. Even the strictest arbiter of fashion can't think anything wrong in us tooling around London in an open carriage. We won't stop, I promise you, not even if my horse throws a shoe. And we'll have my tiger hanging on the back, Mr. Faraday. I'm afraid your additional weight would overbalance us. What if I take you out and let you try the reins another day?”

Sheridan looked like an excited puppy, Eve thought with disgust. If he had a tail it would be wagging.

“Yes, thanks!” Sheridan said. “And call me Sheridan, that is, Sherry. Everyone does.”

“I will, and I'll be glad to let you run my team through its paces. That is,” Aubrey added, with a glance from under his long dark lashes at Eve, “if your sister finds me fit company.”

“That,” Eve said crossly, forgetting her awe of the man, “is nothing more than blackmail, sir.”

“Yes!” Aubrey laughed. “Exactly. Shall we go?”

They drove off into the heart of London.

“Yes, I agree,” Aubrey said pleasantly after a while, as he steered his team around a corner. “London is enough to render anyone awestruck, not to mention dumbstruck.”

Eve turned her head to look at him from under
the brim of her bonnet, and under her eyelashes, as though the sun was blinding her. She
was
blinded, in a way. She couldn't look at the way the sunlight teased dark moonbeams from his hair, showed the texture of his perfect skin, and mostly, showed the sparkle deep in his eyes.

“I'm not awestruck by the City,” she said grudgingly. “Or dumbstruck. I'm accustomed to London. We always stay at our town house in Season. At least we have for the last several years. This isn't my first Season, you know.”

“I do. More's the luck for me,” he said fervently. “But you see, this is my first Season here in London in a long time. I've been living in Italy and touring the Continent whenever it's not at war with itself.”

“Watch the road!” she said in alarm, as another coach came toward them from the other direction. She took a deep breath as he deftly moved their carriage to the side and looked at her, one brow lifted.

“I promise you I won't spill us into a ditch.”

“It's not that,” she said. “I'm quiet because I'm nervous. I'm thinking of how to say what I must say to you.”

“Say away,” he said. “I'm hard to offend.”

“Well, I don't mean to offend you,” she said in a rush, “but none of this makes any sense. You offered for my hand. After two dances.”

“Yes. I'm a fellow who knows his mind,” he said mildly, as he steered into the park.

“All very well for you,” she said, staring at him directly. “But
me
? Please. Let us be realistic. I'm not vastly rich or titled. I'm certainly not a siren. I'm not spectacular in any fashion. I know my assets, and they are my mind. I mean, my brain. And at that, there are females who are smarter than I am as well. Mind, I'm not ugly. I do have my moments, and have had suitors, but why the most glittering fellow in the London social world should ask for my hand upon clapping eyes on me, I do not know. Nor does my father, or brother, and they really love me.

“Not glittering,” she corrected herself. “That's tawdry. You're not that. You glow. You know it too. Now, please, before we go on with this farce: why me, why this?”

She sat back, feeling lighter, and light-headed too. He'd slowed the horses as they went down a single lane through the park, and was staring at her. And she was staring back, enchanted.

It was his eyes, she thought. They had deep hidden depths; more rich chocolate than mere brown, with starry lighter brown striations that ringed their centers.

“Because,” he finally said, pulling up in the shade of an ancient tree. “Precisely because you
are the only woman I know who would say such things about yourself.”

“Piffle,” she said, and wished she had the courage to say something stronger. “Hogwash,” she added.

“Because though you underrate your looks, they give me great pleasure,” he said, smiling. “Everything about you uplifts my spirits. Did you know your nose tilts up? Of course, I suppose you do. But did you know the bow of your lips tilts upward too? And your breasts, they also tilt provocatively…”

She gasped.

He fell still, but grinned.

She settled herself and gave him a gimlet-eyed stare. “Rot,” she said. “There are dozens of females with tilted eyes and noses and whatnot. Try again. You know,” she mused aloud, “the more you speak, the less enchanted I become.”

“And because of that,” he said.

She stared at him, crossing her arms over her chest. It was true. He no longer glowed. Not that he wasn't still wondrous to look at, but her anger was working like the wind blowing away the morning mists.

He cocked his head to the side. “You don't believe me?”

“Not by half. Look you, Mr. Ashford, you have
your pick of women here in London, and I suspect in Paris and Rome and, and—in Zululand too, for all I know. Mind you, I may not be a great beauty, but I'm content with what I am. Still, I know I'm not the kind of a female a man like you would single out in a crowd. Or even a small gathering. No sense beating around the bush. I won't be angry if you tell me the truth. Was it a wager? A test? Some kind of a jest? Whatever, tell me, and let's be done with it.”

“You look wonderful when you growl,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed. She wanted to throw her parasol at him, the pointed end first. He laughed and put up a hand in surrender. “All right,” he said. “The truth is that I saw you, and you reminded me of someone I once knew.”

“Oh,” she said, growing quieter. “Someone you loved?”

“I was too young for that kind of love but, yes, I suppose, that's it too.”

“Oh,” she said again. “A relative of mine? I don't look much like my mother, as I recall. Or my father, for that matter. Maybe one of my cousins? I have distant cousins everywhere.”

“Not your mother, not a cousin. The lady I recall is long gone. But I can't forget her. Do you mind?” he asked, watching her closely. “You look
like the woman I was looking for. It's true that I don't know who you are. But tell me: how is a man to get to know a woman in your world if he doesn't keep company with her? If we talk too long at a party or any kind of social occasion, the gossips will have it that we're involved anyway. I can't dance more than two dances with you. The only way to get to know you is to become engaged to you.”

She tilted her head to the side, again, considering this. She held up one finger. “But what if I didn't suit you, and I turned out to not be the kind of female you wanted?”

“Did you say yes to my offer?” he asked with amusement.

“No, I didn't say anything. That's why we're driving out today, to talk and to meet each other. And as to that, I certainly don't know if I will say yes,” she said, sitting up straighter.

“And so I thought. And so where's the harm?” he asked, picking up the reins again.

“But what if I were the kind of woman who held you to your offer?” she insisted.

“I knew you weren't,” he said.

“How?” she persisted.

“I have excellent judgment,” he said, sounding a little bored.

His sounding displeased grated on her ears,
suddenly she wanted desperately to be in his good favor again. She mentally shook herself. It shouldn't matter that the fellow had a magnificent profile, a magnetic personality, and a melodious voice. But it did.

Still, who was he? What did he want? Should she believe his faradiddle about her resembling the woman he was seeking?

“Let me tell you a little about myself,” he said.

And he did, as they drove round the park in the dappled sunlight. He told her about his estate in the countryside and made it sound beautiful and magical. He told her about his travels and made her laugh and sigh. He told her so much she had trouble taking it all in, and soon just sat, wide-eyed, charmed by his storytelling skill, lulled by his voice, pleased at the attention he was paying her, and slowly, but surely, wanting to move closer to him. She watched his wonderful face and found herself wanting to feel his breath in her ear, and feel the beating of his heart next to hers.

She knew what sexual attraction was, of course. She'd felt it for a stable boy when she was twelve, and a neighbor when she was thirteen, and Douglas McKenzie when she was sixteen. The stableboy had kissed her once, and that had been fine. Her neighbor had trapped her in the butler's pantry one night when she'd been visiting, and pressed
an openmouthed kiss on her. She'd kicked him and stalked away, and that was fine too, because he'd been married. And Douglas had kissed her several times, and then rode off to war, and had never come back. He hadn't been killed, only married to a woman he'd met in Spain while recuperating from a war wound. It hadn't broken her heart. She hadn't been sure Douglas was good for much more than kissing. But she'd been very annoyed because he hadn't come back to her.

Eve had felt twinges of yearning since. But once she was of marriageable age, she'd controlled her desires. Now a stolen kiss could lead to marriage, and she wanted to be entirely sure of the man she finally wed. So she'd learned to suppress desire, and found that it wasn't that hard to do. Until now.