The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(24)

James’s face became blank. “No,” he said. “A woman whose character is formed. I want to know what I’m getting. I have no wish for a wife whose company will grow irksome.”

“And you want my help. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

James looked at Harry. It seemed to Kate that he didn’t wish to speak. “No,” he said finally. “It’s not.”

“Not?” Harry sat up straighter, his tone baffled. “What then?”

James frowned past Harry at the wall. It was as if he stared directly at Kate. She shrank back in the priest’s hole.

“I’m here because I want to marry your sister,” James said.

Harry choked on his brandy.

Kate jerked back, knocking over the candlestick. She reached for it desperately, blindly, and missed. The muted clang went unheard beneath Harry’s coughing.

She knelt in the dark, unable to breathe, while the candlestick rolled across the floor of the priest’s hole. James wanted to marry her?

“You want to marry Kate?” Harry said, when he’d regained his breath. “Why?”

Yes, why? Kate leaned closer to the peephole again and looked at James’s face. There was a crease between his eyebrows. His lips were pressed tightly together.

“Because I think we should deal tolerably well together.”

She closed her eyes. No.

“That’s no reason to marry,” Harry said.

“I have to marry.” James’s tone was flat. “And I like Kate better than any other lady of my acquaintance. I know her. She’s not going to turn into a shrew on me.”

“But you don’t love her.”

For a brief, foolish second there was hope. James’s words extinguished it: “Of course I don’t.”

“James . . .” Harry sounded worried. “You’re my best friend and I’d be pleased to have you for a brother, but—”

“You think it’s a bad idea.”

“I want you to be happy. Both of you. And I don’t know whether this . . .” Kate opened her eyes to see Harry shaking his head.

“It’s the only choice I have left. Damn it, Harry, if it must be a marriage of convenience, then I want a wife I can tolerate.” James’s voice was hard and his expression would have sent a dozen footmen scurrying for cover.

Tolerate. Something in Kate’s chest clenched miserably.

“But would you be happy?”

“Happy?” The word sounded bitter in James’s mouth. He shrugged. “Why not?”

“Would Kate?”

“She’d be mistress of Elvy Park. She’d have a title and a husband who respected her.”

“Respect,” Harry said. He shook his head. “Respect is all very well, but—”

“But?”

“But . . .” Harry shifted in the armchair. Leather creaked. When he spoke, he sounded uncomfortable, embarrassed even: “Shouldn’t a happy marriage have an element of . . . of passion?”

James’s mouth tightened. “Many women would prefer a passionless marriage.”

Not I. Spinsterhood would be preferable to such a fate.

Harry stiffened in his chair. “You don’t believe the marriage bed should be pleasurable for both parties?”

James clenched his jaw. “Damn it, Harry, don’t lecture me!” His grip tightened on the brandy glass, becoming white-knuckled, and then his anger appeared to ebb. His face became devoid of expression. His voice, when he spoke, was flatly neutral: “You think I can’t give a woman pleasure, even if I feel no desire for her?”

Harry put down his glass and leaned forward in his chair. “I’ve no doubt you can. But would you be happy doing so?”

James lowered his gaze to the brandy. A muscle worked in his jaw. “One woman is like another in the dark,” he said.

“You really believe that?” Harry’s voice was disappointed.

James looked up. His eyebrows drew together in a savage frown. “Damn it, Harry,” he said fiercely. “What do you want me to say? I have to believe it!”

Harry was silent.

Weariness replaced the scowling anger on James’s face. “If I could marry for love, I would,” he said. “But my time’s run out, Harry, don’t you see? I have no other choice. I’ve thought about this seriously. I don’t love Kate, or desire her, but I like her. If she married me I’d see that she was happy; you know I would.”

Harry sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Ask her. I don’t know what her answer will be.”

James looked momentarily startled. “You think she’ll refuse me?”

Harry shrugged. “She’s refused several offers.”

“Really?” James’s eyebrows rose. Kate was stung by his surprise. Resentment stirred in her breast. He needn’t be so astonished. He wasn’t the only man to see some use in her as a wife. “Such as?”

“Reginald Pruden proposed when she first came out.”

“Pruden?” James laughed, but there was little amusement in the sound. “Dear God, no wonder she refused! The man’s a pompous ass.” He drank a mouthful of brandy and then shook his head. “Pruden.” His upper lip curled with scorn.