Marriage Deal with the Earl by Liz Tyner

Author:Liz Tyner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-11-02T14:57:05+00:00

* * *

She examined him closely. He’d never appeared so cold. It was as if the man she knew had departed, and a stranger stared back at her. At that moment, she remembered the younger Quinton, the physician, who’d appeared at her parents’ home. He’d been friendly, charming, polite and all things proper, but he’d had the same barrier around him as he did now. She’d not really known him then, nor even when she wed him. Or now.

Now, she saw the stern Quinton, the one who could straighten a nose without flinching.

Those eyes were levelled at her, and the man who owned them appeared to have no heart. Perhaps he truly did feel nothing inside. She would like to soften his heart—to let him know that friends helped each other with words and not just actions.

He was tough.

But she wasn’t, and she couldn’t reach him or understand who he was beneath the veneer.

The most important moments of her life, and she couldn’t get them right. Just like in her studies. She sighed.

She deliberated on Quinton. ‘You live in society now,’ she said. ‘And if your auntie appears at our home, I will invite her to tea and have a maid prepare a room for her.’

His jaw flexed. ‘She could show up with three children and a nose full of snuff.’

She put her hands on her hips. ‘Then I’ll see she has plenty of handkerchiefs.’

‘It’s no matter, Susanna.’ Then he almost smiled, and no one had ever smiled at her with such distance behind it. ‘I learned to accept it a long time ago. I want you to meet my aunt. I don’t want to just tell you about her, but for you to see her and form your own opinion. And don’t pretend with her. If you don’t like her, it won’t upset her at all. Nothing like that does. She’s nail tough and weather hardy.’

‘I’ll meet her,’ she said.

‘Are you strong enough?’

‘I’m soirée tough, and perfume hardy.’

Quinton didn’t argue or agree, and his expression didn’t change. They may have been standing in the same space, but he had closed himself away from her.

She walked to him and held his lapels, staring directly into his face. ‘And if I don’t like her, it’s not the end of the world. Sometimes I don’t like my own family, so if she and I don’t get on well, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that you get on well with her, and if she does find her way to your doorstep, I will make her welcome and disappear into the house.’

He clasped her elbows. ‘I wed the right woman.’

‘Of course, you did. And don’t you forget it.’ She pranced away.

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