The Beautiful Pretender (A Medieval Fairy Tale #2)(14)
“I don’t actually—” She was about to say, “I don’t actually have any books of my own.” Her heart skipped a few beats. An earl’s daughter would never say that. “That is . . . my father does not approve of my reading romances, so I must read them in secret. I also read the Bible.” When I can sneak the German-translated version out of Lord Plimmwald’s library.
“Do you like to hunt? We will form a hunting party at least once while you are here.”
“Oh no, I cannot abide hunting.” Truly, she had never been hunting before, but the prospect filled her with horror. “I shall stay at the castle during any hunting parties.” That should annoy him sufficiently.
“Do you enjoy dancing? We shall have two balls.”
“I am not a good dancer.” She had never learned to dance. She was too busy working at the castle to dance in the streets during festivals with the other villagers, and she had never learned the courtly dances Lady Dorothea knew, the ones the margrave’s guests would no doubt be dancing at the ball. “I shall watch all the other ladies dance during the ball.”
His brows low and drawn together, he did not look pleased. With her strident answers, he’d never guess she was a lowly servant. And voicing such strong opinions made her hold her head a little higher.
“I see. And what are your thoughts about marriage?”
“My thoughts about marriage?”
He nodded.
The question made her heart speed up and her breath grow shallow.
Her feelings about marriage were . . . fanciful and unrealistic. The other servants laughed at them, and Lady Dorothea rolled her eyes and called her “daft.” Noblemen and women saw marriage as a contract, a means to an end, and most of all, a duty. But why change her tactics now? She would tell him the truth.
“I have always thought one should marry, if at all possible, not because the person you marry can give you the most position or wealth, but out of love. After all, if there is no love, if you have no romantic thoughts about each other, then you are much more likely to treat each other badly. And all the position and wealth in the world will not make a person happy if they feel unloved.”
The margrave opened his mouth as if to answer but said nothing. She couldn’t resist going on. She had given this a great deal of thought, after all.
“A woman wishes to be swept up by a man’s fervent feelings for her, by love and longing and depth of feeling. She does not wish to be married for her father’s coin or her noble birth or because she is a sensible choice. She wants to be wooed, even after she is married, to be cherished and loved for her very self, not just because she has a beautiful face, long after she has passed the age of freshness and youth.”
She had said too much. She sensed it by the way no one spoke or even seemed to breathe—besides she herself, who was breathing rather fast. The chancellor was still writing furiously. The slight scraping of his quill was the only sound.
Her face burned and she suddenly was quite smothered in the closed-up room. “That is, if one does not have to marry for duty. For, as I already said, a lady must think of her people first and foremost . . . not about love or feelings or any of those . . . things.”
What a clumsy, unrefined person she must seem to the sophisticated margrave, the chancellor, and the chancellor’s beautiful, polished wife. Ach. She must have frightened him away from ever wanting to marry her, at least.
She pulled at her sleeves, wishing it were permissible to push them up past her elbows. Was it hot in this room? Sweat was starting to trickle down the center of her back.
While the silence stretched on, she examined her fingernails, which were rather more chipped and stained than any lady’s nails should be. She curled her fingernails inside her palms. When would this be over?
Had she made a complete fool of herself? She shouldn’t even be here, talking to the Margrave of Thornbeck as if her opinion mattered.
The margrave cleared his throat again. He seemed amused. He wasn’t exactly smiling, so it could be her imagination. My, but he was appealing, in a large, rugged sort of way. She imagined him as he was before he became the margrave, when he was a knight and the captain of the guard. He must have looked even more formidable than he did now. Power was etched in every line of his face, in the proportions of his shoulders and chest and stature. Even his voice was deep and powerful.
“My last question is, what do you hope to gain from your stay here at Thornbeck Castle?”
“Oh.” A dowry, and a goose, and a side of pork every month for my family. “I hope to meet some new people—I do not have opportunities to meet other ladies very often—and . . .” Should she admit to wanting to see what books he had in his library that she might read? She shrugged. “To enjoy your hospitality, my lord.”
The scowl was back on his face. “Thank you, Lady Dorothea, for answering my questions so honestly and openly.”
Ach. She had said too much. Honestly and openly. She must have sounded like the furthest thing from a dignified, self-possessed daughter of an earl.
“And thank you for coming to Thornbeck.”
That seemed to be Frau Hartman’s cue to escort her back, because she stood and walked over to Avelina.
Avelina curtsied to Lord Thornbeck. He bowed, leaning on his cane, and she hurried out of the room. This must have been how Daniel felt when he was drawn out of the den of lions.