Pursuing Lord Pascal (Dashing Widows #4)

Chapter Seven

P ascal heard Amy sigh as she stared across the grass to the water. After what felt like a long time, she turned to him. “I was eighteen when I married Sir Wilfred Mowbray.”

“And long over your tendre for that popinjay Gervaise Dacre.”

Pascal hoped his gentle teasing would ease her strain. This sharing of confidences was a devilish uncomfortable pastime.

“Oh, that was ancient history by then.”

“Did you love your husband?”

She still stared at the ponds, silvery in the fading light. “I loved his herd of Hereford cattle.”

Pascal gave a low laugh. “Is that why you married him?”

“That’s what I tell people.” She fiddled with the yellow ribbons tying her pretty straw bonnet under her pointed chin. Amy wasn’t a fidgety woman. It was one of the many things he liked about her. But he didn’t need the evidence of her restlessness to see that she hated speaking of her marriage.

Was he cruel to make her continue? Satisfying idle curiosity?

Except he was desperate to understand her, which to his shame, was something he’d rarely said about a lover. Somewhere Amy had changed from a means to an end, however appealing, to someone he cared about.

“But it’s not the whole truth?” He caught her hand and brought it down to rest in her lap.

“No. Not the whole truth,” she said in a hollow tone. To his regret, she slid her hand free.

“Will you tell me?”

Grim humor flattened her lush lips. “I have a horrible feeling I just might.”

“You can trust me, you know.” He meant it.

She leveled a considering gaze on him, hazel eyes somber and piercingly intelligent. After a pause, she sighed again, and her slender shoulders slumped in mute acquiescence. “Growing up, I never had much interest in the things most girls like. Dresses and dances.”

“No boys?”

She stared down into her lap. “Not the ones my age anyway. They seemed so trite and childish. Probably because the men I worked with on the estate had skills and purpose. I’d run Woodley Park since I was sixteen. That suited everyone. Silas could pursue his botanical work, and I could try out my ideas for improving profitability.”

“Most successfully, I gather.” She couldn’t have been much older than sixteen when she published her first article on animal husbandry. Even for the clever Nash family, she was a prodigy.

“Yes, I had some luck.”

She was too modest, but he let it pass. “So what happened?”

“Silas got married.”

“To Caro Beaumont.” Pascal had fond memories of his brief flirtation with the lovely widow, but from the first, Silas Nash had been her choice. “Don’t you like her?”

“Of course I do. She’s a darling, and she’s made him so happy,” Amy said emphatically. “But they came back to live at Woodley Park.”

“All that marital bliss made you feel de trop?”

“You understand.” The restless hand began to pleat her dark green skirts.

“I can guess.”

“Then not long afterward, Helena married Lord West. They didn’t live with us, but they visited. Often.” She spoke the last word as if she accused them of murder.

A huff of sympathetic amusement escaped Pascal. “Even more wedded bliss?”

She cast him a grateful glance. “Exactly. And Robert was away in the navy. Don’t misunderstand. I was—I am—delighted for my brother and sister. They both deserve their happy endings, especially Helena, whose first husband was that swine Lord Crewe.”

“But you were on the outside—and worse, with the master in residence, you no longer had free rein with the estate.”

“Yes,” she said, and this time, when he took her hand, she curled her gloved fingers around his.

“Enter Sir Wilfred Mowbray.”

“Actually Wilfred had always been there. He was a neighbor, and he taught me many things I later tried at Woodley. He was a brilliant farmer, a real pioneer.” Her voice expressed genuine admiration.

“Gad, that would set any young girl’s heart fluttering.”

His sarcasm raised a faint smile. “This young girl, anyway. Everyone thought Wilfred was a lifelong bachelor, but when he proposed and promised that together we’d build the finest herd of beef cattle in England, it seemed the ideal solution. I’d have a purpose and a home of my own—and Silas and Caro could settle into Woodley without my interference.”

The bench was deuced hard on his arse, but Pascal didn’t dare move and risk the flow of confidences. “Convenient all round.”

Amy cast him a doubtful look. “I’m sure that all this strikes you as extremely banal.”

He shook his head. This glimpse into what made her such a remarkable woman was fascinating. “No. But I think you deserved better than you got, even throwing the prize cattle into the mix. You don’t mention love.”

Astonishment widened her eyes. “I didn’t know you were a romantic, Pascal.”

His heart leaped when she used the familiar name without appending the formal title. He’d buy her a county full of damned Herefords if she called him Gervaise.

“I didn’t either. What a discovery,” he said calmly, wondering what she’d say if he confessed that she’d made him so. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I promise,” she said with a laugh.

“A girl should be giddy with happiness when she gets married, especially a pretty chit like you. Your engagement sounds like a business contract.”

She shrugged, unoffended. “But that’s what it was. Wilfred and I were friends. Good friends. I hoped that was enough to go on with.”

When she tried to pull away, Pascal held onto her hand. “No passion?”

“No passion. You’re the first man to…” She broke off, watching the water birds scooting about the ponds.

“Go on.”

“No, not now.”

Of course she didn’t need to explain. The first time he kissed her, he’d recognized her lack of experience. And her fervent response. “So the wedding night wasn’t full of fireworks?”

Amy bent so her bonnet hid her face. “I can’t talk about that.”

Pascal smiled down at her. “Don’t stop now, when you’re getting to the good stuff.”

She lifted her head, eyes sparking green with anger. “You’re very good at wheedling confidences out of people. I’ve never discussed this with anyone.”

He’d wager that was true, given the way she forced out every word. “I’m guessing Wilfred did his duty, but neither of you fell under pleasure’s spell.”

“Wilfred wasn’t much interested,” she said, then continued in a whisper. “Neither was I.”

Hell. What a bloody tragic waste. Pascal swore that when he got Amy into bed—and surely that was only a matter of time—he’d make up for all the arid years. “Poor sod.”

She frowned. “I told you not to feel sorry for me.”

“I’m talking about Wilfred. He had a gorgeous young bride with fire in her blood, and he didn’t know enough to take advantage of his extraordinary luck.”

“I’m sure he’d never been interested.” Her voice was so low that Pascal had to lean closer to hear. “He told me he was an innocent, too, when we married.”

And no doubt once the long-delayed occasion arrived to prove his manhood, he made a complete shambles of the act. “No wonder you’re so skittish.”

Amy cast him a displeased glance. “I’m not skittish.”

His silence spoke volumes, and eventually she sighed. “Well, perhaps a little.”

“Things with Wilfred didn’t improve?”

She looked less hunted. “We did marvelous work on his herd.”

He folded his arms. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“Can you blame me?” A flush marked her cheeks. Through her awkward recital, her color had come and gone. Pascal admired her bravery in telling him even as much as she did. He could see it was an ordeal.

“No. But I need to know who you are.”

A line appeared between her marked brown eyebrows. “That’s a powerful thing for a man to say to a woman. I hope you mean it.”

“I do.” It was a vow, whether she acknowledged it or not.

Around them, the day drew to a close. Rooks cawed monotonously from the trees behind him, and the starlings flew in to set up their twilight racket.

She sighed and stiffened her back, gathering courage to finish the story. “His attentions weren’t…onerous. And when his health began to fail, we had other things to worry about.”

Sadder and sadder. “That must have been difficult.”

“It was.” Her relief at shifting the discussion away from the bedroom was palpable. “I was very fond of Wilfred. He taught me a lot.”

“And of course you still had your cattle.”

“Don’t mock me,” she snapped, ripping her hand from under his.

“I’m not.” Pascal desperately wanted to kiss her. No, he desperately wanted to whisk her away to Richmond’s best inn, haul her into a room, and show her the joy two people could create out of lust and liking.

But he’d promised to behave, damn it. Although after hearing about her marriage, he took a kinder view of this enforced courtship. She deserved a wooing. Hell, she deserved a lover patient enough to persuade her into surrender. Then patient enough to show her just what she’d missed.

She rose, and he flinched when he saw her brush away a surreptitious tear.

“I’m sorry. I’ve stirred unhappy memories.” He stood, too, but she extended a hand to deter his approach.

“I’m fine.” Emotion thickened her voice.

“I don’t regret asking you about Wilfred,” he said softly. “But I regret upsetting you.”

She fumbled in the pocket of her figure-hugging green pelisse and produced a white lace handkerchief. “I couldn’t let you think my marriage was a disaster.”

As far as he could tell, it hadn’t been much else, but Pascal had the wisdom to keep that opinion to himself. “Wilfred was clearly a good man.”

Which was true, too. A fumbling dunderhead when it came to his wife, but that wasn’t the full measure of the fellow.

As reward for his discretion, he received a grateful, if shaky smile. “He was.”

She’d mourned Mowbray, if only as a colleague. However unworthy the thought, Pascal was grateful she’d never loved before.

Did that mean he wanted her to love him?

Shock held him transfixed as he examined the question. Over the years, many women had professed to love him, starting with his flighty mother. A few at least must have meant it. The mawkish emotion had always proven a poisonous gift, laced with demands and tears, and the inevitable acrimony when the woman realized Pascal was incapable of loving her back.

But when he imagined Amy Mowbray loving him, that trapped, suffocated feeling was absent.

How…unexpected.

He extended his hand. “We should go back. As it is, it will be dark when we return.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath, wiped her eyes again, and put away her handkerchief. To his relief, she took his hand, although she still looked unhappy. “Sally will think we’ve eloped.”

He didn’t express his approval of that idea, however much he liked it. Only a heartless villain would badger her about marriage, when she remained so heartbreakingly fragile. “Not her. She’ll just think I conspired to keep you out late.”

Amy managed another faint smile. “I haven’t been much fun this afternoon.”

He tucked her hand back into the crook of his elbow. As they walked toward his carriage, the shadows lengthened around them. A breeze promised a chilly trip back to London. “It doesn’t always have to be high jinks and champagne.”

She moved closer into the shelter of his body. He hoped not just because the air cooled. “Thank you for telling me about your parents.”

“It wasn’t a pleasure.”

She gave a husky laugh. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“After today, you can never call me a stranger again,” he said gently.

“No,” she said, and for the life of him, he couldn’t tell whether that change left her pleased or dismayed.