The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [3]
“I know. He’s also a very nice young man. But Sinjun,” he continued quickly, raising his hand to still her, “it doesn’t matter if he were a very dry saint. You don’t have to marry him. Accept his sweat and his niceness and simply try to enjoy yourself. Remember, you are here in London to have fun, nothing more, just to enjoy yourself. Don’t listen to Mother.”
Sinjun couldn’t hide her sigh. “Mother,” she repeated. “It’s difficult, Douglas. She says I must hie myself to the altar or I shall be on the wretched shelf. This shelf is the dreaded Spinster Shelf, and she always says it in capital letters. She continues to list out all the shelf’s incumbent horrors, including becoming Alex’s drudge once Mother has cast off her mortal coil. She even remarked that I was getting long in the tooth. When I looked at my teeth in the mirror, I swear one of my molars had lengthened just a bit.”
“Don’t listen to her. I am the head of the Sherbrooke family. You will enjoy yourself; you will laugh and flirt to your heart’s content. If you don’t find a gentleman to please you, it doesn’t matter.”
His voice was austere and very lordly, and Sinjun was forced to smile. “I’m also nineteen, and that, apparently, is nearing a disastrous age for a girl to be yet unwed, and completely unacceptable for a girl not to have even one beau. She even points to Alex being eighteen when she wed you. Then she says that Sophie was lucky to have coerced Ryder into marriage, because she was nearly twenty and likely to be a lifetime spinster. Taking in Ryder, she claims, was the smartest thing Sophie ever managed. It is also my second Season. Mother says I must keep my mouth shut because gentlemen don’t like ladies who know more than they do. She says it drives them to the brandy bottle and to gaming hells.”
Douglas said something crude and quite inelegant.
Sinjun laughed, but it was a sham laugh. “Well, one never knows, does one?”
“All I know is that Mother says a lot, too much.”
But even as Douglas spoke, clearly harassed, she saw the man in her mind’s eye and she smiled, this one real, filling her eyes with warmth and dreams. She realized that her sister-in-law Alex was looking at her closely, and that her expression was puzzled. But she said only, “Feel free to speak to me anytime you wish to, Sinjun.”
“Perhaps soon. Ah, here’s Lord Castlebaum, wet hands and all. But he does dance very well. Perhaps I shall discuss shelves with him. I will see both of you later.”
She stepped on Lord Castlebaum’s toes three times in an attempt to find the man again. Later she began to think that her eyes must have lied, that no man could be so immensely glorious to behold. But she dreamed of him that night. They were together, and he was laughing and standing close to her, touching his fingertips to her cheek, and she knew she wanted him and she was leaning toward him, wanting to touch him, and it was there in her gaze, all the wanting she had for him, and he saw it and knew it as well. The scenes softened and slowed, melding together into vague colors and intertwining bodies, and she awoke near to dawn, her heart pounding, perspiration lying heavy on her skin, and a moan in her throat. Her body felt languid and slow. There was a strange ache deep in her belly. She knew she’d dreamed the mystery of lovemaking, but only in blurred images. She had yet to solve the mystery, yet to know him, yet to be intertwined with him. She wished she’d discovered his name, for to be that intimate with a nameless man wasn’t something she could accept.
She saw him the second time at a musicale at the Ranleagh town house on Carlysle Square three nights later. A very large soprano from Milan thumped the piano with her fist as her Viennese accompanist tried to keep his fingers on the trembling keys and mark a strong beat at the same time. Sinjun was soon bored and twitching with restlessness.