“There are still those who traffic in female slavery, as well,” Della went on. “Then too, men carrying diseases are a menace of a different class, and you are upset because Nick will never put you at risk of same.”

One did not clap one’s hands over one’s ears in disrespect of one’s elders. “You are trying to frighten me. I am not wrong to want my husband’s respect.”

“No, you are not,” Della conceded as Nick sauntered out of the garden, “but Nick does respect you. If he didn’t, he’d be leading you a dance, flirting up a storm as only Nick can flirt, and enticing you into his bed, as only Nick can entice.”

“What do you mean?” Leah’s curiosity was reluctant now. She wanted to despise Nick—and call him back, finery, flowers, and all, to tell him so—though Della was suggesting she should not have that comfort.

“Nick isn’t using his head either, my dear, or he’d realize you and he will be expected to dwell under the same roof for at least the period of the earl’s mourning, and that will be a very long year, indeed. And he’ll have to be at Belle Maison, too far from Town to make coming and going frequently easy. When he takes his seat, he’ll be scrutinized from every angle, and this profligacy he’s so casual about now will be frowned upon by those whose vote he might seek for this or that reason.”

Leah’s brows knitted as Nick disappeared from view. “You are saying he won’t be able to avoid me as easily as he thinks.”

“He won’t be able to avoid you,” Della said, “and he won’t be able to indulge in many of his usual diversions.”

“That doesn’t mean he’ll become a husband I can live with.”

Della’s blue eyes softened, as did her voice. “Love is frightening to most men. They come to it kicking and bellowing, all indignation and wrath to hide their confusion and the fear that they’ll misstep. Women, by contrast, know little else but to seek it, and you and Nick are no different.”

Leah held Della’s gaze, trying to think, not simply react out of hurt feelings—and finding it wretchedly difficult.

“My father has never wanted me,” she said. “My brothers are burdened by my situation, though they do care for me. I do not want to be simply an obligation for a husband who cannot care for me.” The truth of that sentiment, the longing to be wanted and cherished by a particular, worthy man, hit with a stark pain.

“Then be useful to him. Run his households, grace his arm in public, be his friend, give him time, and accept what he can give you in return.”

“You are asking me to be patient,” Leah said, “and reasonable, and adult.”

“I know this is difficult. It’s difficult for me most days, and I’ve been practicing a great deal longer than you, my girl. Imagine how hard it would be for us were we men.”

A small, hesitant smile bloomed on Leah’s face at this sentiment, and in the place in her heart that had been missing her mother for long, long years, warmth kindled. Lady Della wrapped her in a hug, and in those moments, the horror of being Nick’s countess didn’t loom quite as painfully or as immutably.

Nick was just a man, as Della had pointed out. Leah would consider in the coming days if she could resign herself to marriage with him, with all the attendant frustrations—and hopes?—that might entail.

* * *

“Too late, Nicholas Haddonfield, you’ve been spotted by the enemy’s pickets.” Leah addressed him crisply, though her tone was laced with humor, and she didn’t make any move to leave her post at the kitchen’s worktable.

Nick took another two steps into the dim, cozy confines of the kitchen, both relieved that Leah was speaking to him and wary that he’d just been caught in a female ambush.

“I’m easily spotted, another burden of my excessive height, but nobody’s firing on me yet. What brings you here at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Leah said, rising and fetching the kettle from the hob.

“Tea won’t help with that.” Nick reached up to a high shelf that ran around much of the kitchen. “This might.”

“Brandy?”

“Brandy,” Nick confirmed, getting down two glasses and pouring a healthy slosh into each one. “I’m also in search of victuals. To your health.”

“And yours.” Leah saluted with her glass and sipped her drink.

“Are you hungry?” Nick wrestled a wheel of cheese from the larder and then commenced plundering in search of a loaf of bread.

“I am. Just a little.”

“I’ll eat with you here then, while Valentine assaults our ears with his infernal finger exercises.”

Nick shaved off slices of cheese then sliced bread as well. A hungry man needed meat—and Nick needed to puzzle out Leah’s mood—so he put the bread and the cheese wheel away, and carved off slices from a hanging ham to add to a growing platter of food. It was too early for strawberries, but Nick put two Spanish oranges on the plate and grabbed two linen serviettes.

After an instant’s hesitation, he decided the enemy picket was in a friendly mood, so he scooted onto the bench beside her.

“I am pleased you did not flounce out of the room upon sighting me,” Nick said as he passed the platter to Leah—an appetizer of honesty. “Eat, for I’ll gobble up all you do not take.”

More honesty, because he was famished.

“What about Lord Val?” she asked, arranging cheese and meat between two slices of bread. “This needs butter, my lord.”

“You are my lording me,” Nick said, getting back up. “Though we do need butter.” He rummaged in the larder and emerged with a dish of butter, sniffing at it delicately. “I’ve warned my steward every year since I bought this place not to let the cows into the upper pasture until the chives are done, but he ignores me, and we get the occasional batch of onion butter.”

“This passes muster?” Leah asked, accepting the butter and a knife from him.

“It does.” Nick resumed his seat on the bench beside her. “Will I pass muster?”

“Are you referring to your proposal?” He watched while Leah put a generous amount of butter on her bread.

“I am.” Nick took the knife and butter from her. “You are not afraid to use enough butter so you can taste it.”

“I like butter.” Leah considered her sandwich while Nick built his own. “And as much as I want to be upset with you for the terms you offer, I find I like you too. Then too, marriage is still considered by most titled families to be a dynastic undertaking. Other things—love, passion, personal preference—are not of great moment.”

They were of great moment to Nick, and yet her words nourished his hopes in a way having nothing to do with food. He studied his sandwich. “You’ll have me then?”

“I’m not sure. I need a little more time to think.”

Damn the luck. “That’s my girl.” Nick patted her hand approvingly. “If I’m going to offer you half measures, then you should at least make me sweat for it.”

“Are you serious, teasing, or complaining?”

“I’m serious.” Nick bit into his sandwich and chewed in thoughtful silence for a moment. If he were to start in complaining, he’d be at it until autumn. “If I could offer you more, Leah, I would. Or I think I would.”

“Thank you, I think,” Leah replied, her tone ironic. “You’re prepared for the fact that I have no dowry?”

“I am.” Nick felt an odd lifting in his chest. She’d meant it when she said she liked him, and whatever temper he’d put her in yesterday, she was navigating her way through it.

“If I’m not to provide you the services of a wife in truth, much less progeny, then I at least want to earn my upkeep.”

“You don’t need to earn your upkeep, Leah.” Nick scowled over at her as she munched her sandwich. “For God’s sake, you’re a lady.”

“How many estates do you control?”

This was not a question from a woman who intended to reject a proposal, so Nick launched into the litany, including the offshore properties.

Leah grimaced. “That must keep you busy.”

“Endlessly, and I hate it, but Beck is entitled to ramble around until he wants to settle down, because he has already traveled for us extensively, and George and Dolph are still at university.”

“If I were your wife,” Leah said slowly, “could you use some help with it all?”

Now he was going to complain, plain and simple. “What kind of help is there? An avalanche of correspondence lands on my desk in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and it all must be dealt with posthaste if civilization is not to topple on account of my neglect.”

“How is your French?”

“Spoken?” Nick shot her a leer. “Adequate for my purposes, but written? Deplorable. Spanish and Portuguese, similar.”

“My French is excellent,” Leah said. “You should either hire a factor on the Peninsula who can communicate in English, or hire a secretary to come in one day a week who can manage the Iberian languages, if not those and the French.”

Nick paused in the assembly of a second sandwich and stared at her. Della had probably told him the same thing, though he could not recall exactly when. “Suppose I should at that.”

“It would be easy enough to hire such a person.” She regarded Nick’s second sandwich. “If you’re going to take your seat in the Lords, you’ll need a parliamentary wife.”

Which was something else he hadn’t wanted to think about. “My stepmother excelled at such. Bellefonte would have been useless without her.”

“You will never be useless,” Leah scoffed, reaching for an orange. “I think you would enjoy the intensity of the political process.”

He hadn’t considered he might enjoy any part of it. “Not the tedium. Not that at all.”

“How active was your father?” Leah asked, tearing a hunk of rind from the fruit. The explosion of scent and juice had her bringing the orange to her nose for a long whiff. She closed her eyes to sniff the zest, then opened them slowly and blinked at him.

What had she asked?

“My father was very active in politics,” Nick said, “until he fell ill a few years ago. Are you going to inhale that thing or finish peeling it?”

“Maybe both.” Leah smiled at him over the ripe fruit. “I can probably also be of use to you with regard to your siblings, Nicholas.”

He could hardly focus on her words, so aware had Nick become of Leah’s physical presence beside him. It was that damned orange, the way she looked when she closed her eyes like that, and the knowledge that under her night rail and nightgown, she was likely naked.

Her skin would bear the scent of the household’s guest soap, redolent of roses and lily of the valley.

“Here.” Leah passed Nick three sections of orange, stuck together. “Your disposition looks like it needs sweetening.”

“I am merely tired. I need an infusion of Valentine’s music to soothe me.”

“He plays so well,” Leah agreed, popping a section of orange into her mouth. “I’ve wondered what it feels like, to have such talent literally in your hands.”

“It’s more than his hands, it’s in his heart too,” Nick mused, watching as Leah licked orange juice from the heel of her hand, then reached for the second orange.

“I am already a sticky mess,” Leah said, “let me peel this one for you.” She took the second orange and made short work of it, while Nick watched and tried not to let the words “sticky mess” play havoc with his brain. When she was done, she split the entire orange in half and put each half on the empty plate, save one section.

The last one, she passed to Nick, but rather than put it in his hand, she brought it directly to his lips, as if she fed large, hungry men from her own hand every evening. Nick accepted the morsel, chewed, swallowed, and kept his eyes on her as she rose to wash her hands at the sink.

Marriage to this woman was going to flay his wits, incessantly.

“My thanks, Leah. How much longer will you need to consider the possibility of marrying me?”

Leah cocked her head and frowned at him. “Not long. Will you speak to my father?”

“Not until I have an answer from you. I’ve already spoken to Amherst, and he favors the match, guardedly.”

Leah’s brows shot up—she had the most graceful arch to her brows. “Guardedly?”

“Your older brother is a romantic. He wants you to have a knight in shining armor, one smitten with your charms and swooning at your feet.” Nick wanted her to have the very same things, which was a bad joke of divine proportions.

“Heavens. I’d settle for an occasional heartfelt sigh.”

“Amherst is going to settle for letting me keep you safe,” Nick said, noting for the first time how red her hair looked by subdued light. “I hope you do as well.”