Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways #2)(38)

"Because my kisses aren't going to lead to courtship."

That hurt. It also puzzled and frustrated her. Before all was said and done, Win intended to make Merripen admit just why he wouldn't pursue her. But not here, and not now.

"Well, I do have a chance of courtship with Dr. Harrow," she said, attempting a pragmatic tone. "And at my age, I must consider any marriage prospect quite seriously."

"Your age?" he scoffed. "You're only twenty-five."

"Twenty-six. And even at twenty-five, I would be considered long in the tooth. I lost several years-my best ones perhaps-because of my illness."

"You're more beautiful now than you ever were. Any man would be mad or blind not to want you." The compliment was not given smoothly, but with a masculine sincerity that heightened her blush.

"Thank you, Kev."

He slid her a guarded look. "You want to marry?"

Win's willful, treacherous heart gave a few painfully excited thuds, because at first she thought he'd asked, "You want to marry me?" But no, he was merely asking her opinion of marriage as… well, as her scholarly father would have said, as a "conceptual structure with a potential for realization."

"Yes, of course," she said. "I want children to love. I want a husband to grow old with. I want a family of my own."

"And Harrow says all of that is possible now?"

Win hesitated a bit too long. "Yes, completely possible."

But Merripen knew her too well. "What are you not telling me?"

"I am well enough to do anything I choose now," she said firmly.

"What does he-"

"I don't wish to discuss it. You have your forbidden topics; I have mine."

"You know I'll find out," he said quietly.

Win ignored that, casting her gaze to the park before them. Her eyes widened as she saw something that had not been there when she had left for France… a huge, magnificent structure of glass and iron. "Is that the Crystal Palace? Oh, it must be. It's so beautiful-much more so than the engravings I've seen."

The building, which covered an area of more than nine acres, housed an international show of art and science called the Great Exhibition. Win had read about it in the French newspapers, which had aptly termed the exhibition one of the great wonders of the world.

"How long since it was completed?" she asked, her step quickening as they headed toward the glittering building.

"Not quite a month."

"Have you been inside? Have you seen the exhibits?"

"I've visited once," Merripen said, smiling at her eagerness. "And I saw a few of the exhibits, but not all. It would take three days or more to look at everything."

"Which part did you go to?"

"The machinery court, mostly."

"I do wish I could see even a small part of it," she said wistfully, watching the throngs of visitors exiting and entering the remarkable building. "Won't you take me?"

"You wouldn't have time to see anything. It's already afternoon. I'll bring you tomorrow."

"Now. Please" She tugged impatiently on his arm. "Oh, Kev, don't say no."

As Merripen looked down at her, he was so handsome that she felt a pleasant little ache at the pit of her stomach. "How could I say no to you?" he asked softly.

As he took her to the towering arched entrance of the Crystal Palace, and paid a shilling each for their admission, Win gazed at her surroundings in awe. The driving force behind the exhibition of industrial design had been Prince Albert, a man of vision and wisdom. According to the tiny printed map that was given out with the tickets, the building itself was constructed of over a thousand iron columns, and three hundred thousand panes of glass. Parts of it were tall enough to encompass full-grown elm trees. All totaled, there were one hundred thousand exhibits from around the world.

The exhibition was important in a social sense as well as a scientific one. It provided an opportunity for all classes and regions, the high and low, to mingle freely beneath one roof in a way that seldom happened. People of all manner of dress and appearance crowded inside the building.

A fashionably dressed gathering waited at the transept, or central cross-section, of the Crystal Palace. None of them seemed to take an interest in their surroundings. "What are those people waiting for?" she asked.

"Nothing," Merripen replied. "They're only here to be seen. There was a similar group when I was here before. They don't go to any of the exhibits. They merely stand there preening."

Win laughed. "Well, should we stand nearby and pretend to admire them, or shall we go look at something really interesting?"

Merripen handed her the little map.

After scrutinizing the list of courts and displays, Win said decisively, "Fabrics and textiles."

He escorted her through a crowded glass hallway into a room of astonishing size and breadth. The air chattered with the sounds of looms and textile machinery, with carpet bales arranged around the room and down the center. Scents of wool and dye made the atmosphere acrid and lightly pungent. Goods from Kidderminster, America, Spain, France, the Orient, filled the room with a rainbow of hues and textures… natweave, knotted pile and cut pile, looped, hooked, embroidered, braided… Win removed her gloves and ran her hands over the gorgeous offerings.