Chemistry of Magic: Unexpected Magic Book Five (Unexpected Magic #5)(5)
But when he did not immediately stand after her barely whispered Yes, she could do no less than hold out her newly gloved hand and help him up. Raising all that great height was apparently a difficult procedure. She reluctantly lent him what strength she had.
Even through the gloves she felt prickles of warning traveling up her arm, and oddly, to her midsection as well as her lungs. She resisted her instinctive need to heal his pain. There was no point suffering with him. Consumption could not be cured.
She wanted to cry again that such an imposing gentleman should be doomed by such a hideously debilitating disease. As soon as he lurched to his feet again, she pulled her hand away.
“You honor me,” Lord Dare said, pressing a dry kiss to her cheek.
The brief touch of his lips did not hurt, she realized with relief, but his proximity was frightening in its. . . She didn’t have a word for what she felt.
She’d never met a man who held her interest for more than the ten minutes it took to speak with him. But this insanely impetuous man had understood everything she hadn’t said and instead of scorning her—he’d acquiesced! In a few minutes, he’d analyzed all the pluses and minuses that she’d spent countless restless nights debating and made his decision without hesitation. Perhaps astonishment was the word she looked for.
“No more so than you honor me,” she muttered. “I cannot believe you haven’t called me mad or simple-minded or simply shocking.”
“Oh, well, we are both a little of all that,” Dare said cheerfully, attempting to tuck in his shirt and button his waistcoat. “But let us say we are pragmatic. I’m not at all certain I want to hear what romantic delusion caused you to turn your back on all the gentlemen who would gladly take you up on your offer.”
“I am twenty-six years of age. I’ve had quite enough time to inspect all the available bachelors, and they’ve all come up short, sometimes literally,” she admitted with a deprecating laugh, stepping away from him so he did not loom quite so much over her.
“We have only met once and briefly,” he reminded her. “You cannot have met all of society.”
She grimaced. “I think I have a better notion of who is available than you. You are much like my Ives cousins-in-law. You spend your time in male circles, intent on your own interests, which means you are seldom available in ballrooms and parlors for me to study, as most other gentlemen are. And you can scarcely say you know me or my family or you would understand why my choices are limited.”
He glanced around, locating his frock coat over a bust of some ancient Greek. She watched in fascination as he pulled on the coat. She’d never really seen a gentleman dress before. Which made her wonder—would he expect to live with her? Would she have to become used to this familiarity? Her throat clenched at the possibility. Surely not. He was a man of a wide variety of interests, all of them city related. She should be safe enough in the Yorkshire countryside.
This would be a marriage in name only, mere names upon a license and the legal settlements.
“You are saying there is something about you and your family that makes gentlemen decline a fortune? That must be a very large something.” Buttoning his coat, he glanced down at her, looking quite ridiculous with his smudged face and white eyes.
Despite being of a very fine cloth and tailoring, the coat fit loosely on him—one more sign of his illness. Sadness enveloped her as Emilia recognized how sharp the viscount’s mind was. Had she only met the gentleman sooner. . . They would have despised each other. From all reports, he was very much a masculine sort with little interest in society ladies. He even treated the females of his family with appalling disregard.
“I am a Malcolm.” She waited for recognition of this flaw. He looked at her blankly. He really did not go about in society much. A little more of her confidence returned now that she held his interest. “My family is said to be descended from the witches you scorned earlier. We have eccentric beliefs—one of which is that what belongs to the females of the line, stays with them. Trusts were established long ago to lock up our fortunes so our husbands cannot spend or gamble them away.”
He stopped fastening his coat and stared at her from beneath singed eyebrows. Honestly, the man looked little better than a chimney sweep. Well, maybe three or four chimney sweeps all packed together.
“I cannot touch your inheritance once we marry?” he asked warily.
“Smart man.” She opened the study door, knowing his mother was waiting anxiously not far away. “If you do not hesitate at my obvious flaw of being unfeminine and unladylike, you may argue the settlements with my great-grandfather’s executor and my father’s solicitor. They are both eager to have me off their hands, and they will approve of you. I’m sure the arrangements for the funds you need will be satisfactory.”
He looked relieved to know that funds would be forthcoming, establishing the basis of this marriage as one of convenience, thank goodness. She had no romantic notions. This bargain would achieve what she wanted more than anything else in the world—and that wasn’t a husband.
Lord Dare’s brilliant brain evidently kicked in, and he bowed gallantly. “Unfeminine? Never. In my eyes, you are Venus. Never say you are less.” He kissed the back of her glove, apparently recognizing the need for gentlemanly flattery at a moment like this.
She waited for the shudder or the prickles, but as with his earlier kiss, her gift didn’t react. It wasn’t as if she had much experience at kissing of any sort.