The Misfortunate Miss Farthington by Maggie Dallen

Author:Maggie Dallen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maggie Dallen

6

The distance between Richard and Tessa’s father was not vast.

No more than a yard separated them, and no more than a desk sat between them. But Richard felt as though they might have been standing on opposite sides of a ravine for all the common ground they shared.

“I’m sure you can understand where I’m coming from,” Tessa’s father said. Not unkindly.

A muscle in Richard’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth. He wasn’t an angry man. He’d never once given in to a fit of temper. But sitting here now, listening to this stuffed shirt viscount prattle on about how he’d soon be earl and how that meant his daughter deserved a better match than some gentleman scholar with no title or fortune to his name…

The fact that he was kind about it somehow made matters worse.

Richard wanted to argue. He wanted to shout. But he couldn’t do so without looking like some childish blowhard. And as her father very recently pointed out—Richard was no child.

“A man such as yourself should certainly settle down,” he’d pointed out. “It’s past time you started a family, I’d say.”

Just not with my daughter. That was the crux of it. Though her father had softened his refusal with words that were impossible to refute.

She deserves more. She deserves better.

She deserves younger and wealthier and a title and…

The list went on and on, it seemed, of all the things he was incapable of giving his beloved Miss Farthington.

No, Tessa. She’d told him to call her Tessa. And in his mind he’d been thinking of her as that until just now. Until it became abundantly clear that her father would not give permission for him to court his daughter.

Her father smiled at him now, a sad, resigned sort of smile that seemed to say my apologies at the same time as it screamed but I will not budge.

The muscle in Richard’s jaw ticked again. If her father thought that he could be so easily sent away, he was mistaken. “My lord,” he started, leaning forward in his seat. “I understand your position. I do. But I beg that you try to see this from my point of view…”

I love your daughter.

No. He would not say it aloud. It was true. He’d known what this affliction was for months now, and he’d felt it shift from infatuation to something much more pure and meaningful with every new interaction he had with the lady.

It was more than an attraction. It was deeper than admiration. It was a mix of passion and respect and admiration that would drive a man to do something reckless.

“I mean to marry your daughter,” he said in a low tone.

Or…perhaps it was a growl. Whatever the sound was that escaped him, it had the older man blinking in surprise. “And I told you—”

“Just do not say no,” Richard hastened to say. “Let me have a chance. Much as you wish for your daughter’s contented future, surely you wish for her happiness as well, do you not?”

The old man grumbled in annoyance.

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