Yes, that was it: The vitality about her, the way her whole face and body welcomed the world’s delights.
Suddenly, he sympathized with her urge to touch the orchid, to confirm that something so marvelous was real. His fingers twitched, his arms became restless, as if he could reach out and capture her laughter. Hold it, taste it, share it.
A surge of irritation had him balling his hands into fists instead.
Blast it. This was not how she was meant to react to his proposal. This was not how he was meant to react to her.
If a woman earned a reputation as a wily, ambitious seductress, then she should bloody well have the decency to act the part. She should flatter and flirt and… Oh hell, he didn’t know. Cast coy looks under her lashes, perhaps; present her figure to its best advantage, and declare him clever and handsome in a manner so sincere that he even began to believe it himself.
She was not meant to make fun of him, or appear scatterbrained and silly one moment and biting and crass the next. Why had no one thought to mention that she had mischievous eyes and a playful smile and a tendency to break out in satire?
He scowled at her. “A marriage proposal from an earl amuses you, Miss Knight?”
She shook off the last of her laughter. “It is such a male way of solving your problem: ‘Should I kidnap this woman or seduce her? By George,’ he says, ‘I’ll do both at once and just marry the girl.’”
“How gratifying that you find my proposal diverting. But I assure you, I am quite serious.”
“Yes, you look quite serious.” Another light laugh escaped her lips, and she tapped them with two fingers to make them behave. “You’re not very good at proposing, are you?”
“You’re not very good at accepting.”
“If you were better at proposing, I might be better at accepting.”
“If you were better at accepting, I wouldn’t need to be good at proposing. Why do you not leap at this opportunity? If you married me, you’d be a countess.”
Ideally, she would not realize that if she married him under a false name, she would not legally be his wife. But even if she did know the marriage wouldn’t be valid, surely she could see how to turn this to her advantage? Surely, her past scandal had ruined her so thoroughly she would be desperate enough to try to make this marriage real. Get close to him, charm him, play on his lust or honor or gullibility so that he married her anyway. None of which she would ever manage to do, of course, but surely she would take the chance to try.
“Precisely,” she said. “You would prevent me from becoming a future viscountess by raising me to the higher position of countess instead.”
Rafe shrugged. “Men like Ventnor get all excited about lineage and breeding and whatnot. I don’t much care whom I marry, so long as she’s female and she… No, that’s it. Just so long as she’s female.”
And Thea Knight certainly qualified on that count.
“Besides, you’d have to haul me off to Scotland to marry me quickly,” she added. “And I don’t want to go to Scotland.”
“Neither do I. Scotland is very far and I want to go home. And since, as you point out, English laws preclude us from marrying quickly in the normal way, I came prepared: I have obtained a common license.”
“A common license. I see. Yes. Right.”
“Do you know what a common license is, Miss Knight? I could tell you,” he added, “but then I’d be educating you, and we both know how little you enjoy that.”
Ignoring her glare, he slid the license out of his pocket and offered it for her inspection. She caught one edge of the paper between two ink-stained fingers and stretched to peer at it. A hint of her strawberry-sweet fragrance tantalized his nose; he kept his eyes resolutely on the page.
“This license authorizes us to marry immediately. The details are all there.” He pointed to each item as he spoke. “Rafe Alexander Landcross. That’s me. And Helen Elizabeth Knight. That’s you. There’s the name of the parish where this permits us to marry. And the name of the bishop who issued the license: the Bishop of Dartford. He’s my father’s cousin. When I told him I was journeying to Warwickshire to meet and marry Miss Helen Knight, he was more than happy to prepare this for me.”
“Yes. Right. I see.” She nodded knowledgeably and released the page. “That seems to be in order. Well done.”
As he returned the license to his pocket, she paced away from him, glanced at him over her shoulder, then turned back, frowning and drumming her fingers against her chin.
“This is absurd,” she finally said. “Is this a prank?”
“Do you think I have nothing better to do than travel for days to play some prank?”
“We’ve barely met and you’re not very nice.”
“True, but I am an earl.”
“And?”
“Are you saying you do not find me interesting?”
“Not nearly as interesting as you find yourself.”
“You followed me in here for this encounter.” He waved an arm at the plants and glass walls. “An intimate tête-à-tête in the twilight. What did you seek, if not a marriage proposal?”
“I sought an explanation for the words you spoke in the inn.”
“Hmm?”
“One cannot make cryptic comments without explaining them. It’s exasperating.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to be a countess?”
Something flickered in her eyes, a hint of confusion, indecision.
Rafe waited. What the hell did she want, then? Unless the rumors were wrong and she was not the scheming social climber that her reputation suggested? But she must be. Look at her current efforts to help her sister catch a viscount’s heir. And her own scandal was more than rumor. Scores of people had witnessed her disgrace. It was all perfectly clear to Rafe. If only she would do what he expected her to do, so he could get this blasted matter over with and go home.
“You must be very eager to please Lord Ventnor, to go to such lengths,” was all she said. “I had no idea earls were so biddable.”
“When the reward is sufficient, we are positively servile.” Her contempt should not bother him, but still he found himself adding, “If I marry, I get access to a large trust fund.”
“You were already married.”
“My mother established the trust to encourage her younger sons to provide legitimate grandchildren. Unfortunately, I was a widower by then and did not qualify, as dead wives are not known for producing live children.”
But she did not seem to be listening, as a calculating gleam lit her eye. “That must be quite a sum.”
“It’s big.”
“How big?”
“Very big.”
“I see.”
Rafe did not bother asking what she thought she saw, for one thing she would not see was a penny of that money.
“There you have it, Miss Knight. Early tomorrow, we rouse the vicar, marry, and then leave for my estate.”
“Your estate?”
“Brinkley End, in Somersetshire.”
“But I’d need to live with you.”
With that, she was backing away.
“And heirs,” he lied desperately. “Earls have to make heirs. Surely you can see the opportunity this presents.”