A Knight in Central Park(47)

“When were you planning on telling me?”

“Never,” she answered flatly. “For none of it is true. I have no interest in marriage.” She stirred the water with her stick.

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Since you told Shelly you had never been with a man, I thought maybe their stories were true and that you’ve been...” He tried to think of the right words, “...saving yourself, so to speak.”

Her laughter was hearty and rich, making him feel a tad foolish for bringing it up at all.

“I was jesting when I told you I was an innocent maiden. I have been with so many men I can hardly keep track of the numbers. Verily I am surprised we have not yet run into one of my many suitors.”

It was impossible to determine whether she was telling the truth, or not. “So you’re not getting any ideas about us—” he wagged a finger between them “—hooking up and getting married?”

She snorted. “A silly notion all this talk of marriage. Grandfather likes to believe what he wants to believe. His tales are exactly that...tales, nothing more. My brother and sisters tend to take the old man’s word as gospel.” She sighed. “I have no desire to marry you or any other man.”

“Well...good,” he said, unsure as to why her words would bother him, which they did. Maybe it was because she spoke with such finality. Or maybe the thought of Alexandra being with dozens of men didn’t sit well with him. Ridiculous. He didn’t care how many men she’d dated. He certainly didn’t care whether or not she found him desirable.

“I would never marry a man I hardly knew,” she went on. “Especially a man coddled and made soft by man’s modern creations.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, hoping she was finished.

“I fair say I would not marry you for all the treasure in King Henry’s—”

“Alexandra,” he said, cutting her short. “You’ve made your point.”

“’Tis well and good because—” she stifled a chuckle with her hand, unable to finish her sentence.

He rolled his eyes. “What’s so funny now?”

“For a moment,” she said, still chuckling, “I tried to picture you as a husband. Not my husband, but any woman’s husband. Imagine that.”

He waited for her to elaborate, but she was a woman and she knew she had him right where she wanted him. “Oh no you don’t,” he said after she went back to fishing. “I want to know why my being anyone’s husband would strike you as so damned amusing.”

“You do not know?”

“No, I do not know,” he said, mimicking her wide-eyed wonder.

“For one thing,” she began, “a woman would grow exhausted trying to keep things neat and orderly for a man like you. And for what purpose? Obviously you prefer your work to the detriment of all else; exactly why Suzanne discarded you in the first place.”

His jaw tensed. “For your information, Suzanne only discarded me, as you so kindly put it, because she found you in my bed.”

Alexandra swished his comment away like an annoying bug. “Shelly mentioned your difficulty with committing to a woman more than once. Naught to be ashamed of, mind you. Most men know naught of a woman’s needs and thus they become easily befuddled.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“And what about children?” Alexandra went on. “Most women want children at some point in their lives. You said yourself you were not fond of them.” She shook her head as if he were a lost cause. “Methinks surely a man like you would be hard-pressed to find a wife.”

Joe swallowed his pride and decided not to take the bait. He should be relieved hearing how adamant she was about never marrying a man like him. And she was right about children. Every woman he ever dated had talked about having children someday. Kids were noisy and required constant discipline, entirely too much responsibility for a guy who thrived on peace and quiet.

“And what about love?” Alexandra asked.

“What about it?”

“You, Sir Joe, are in love with your studies and your research. You are much too busy to love a woman the way a woman wants and needs to be loved.”

He had nothing to say to that, which prompted Alexandra to turn back to her fishing.

Inwardly, he smiled. Alexandra was candid and brutally honest with her feelings. She was a woman born in hard times, a woman who had lost her parents too soon, only to be left to care for her siblings, not to mention her grandfather, and a dilapidated farm. And yet she was self-reliant and strong. She was right when she’d said she didn’t need a man to survive.