“A Great Dane, then?”
“Lord Griffin…”
He tugged her forward, leading her toward the outside edge of the ballroom. “It’s just that I’ve always thought it would be nice.”
“What?”
“To be in love with one’s wife—or in your case, one’s husband.”
Her face softened for a moment, her gray eyes going a little foggy, her sweet lips parting. Griffin found himself drawn to her fleeting emotion. Was this a glimpse of the true Lady Hero?
Then she was back to being Lady Perfect, her spine erect, her lips firm, and her eyes giving nothing away. The change was rather fascinating. What had made her into such a chameleon?
“How romantic,” she drawled in a bored, social voice that set his teeth on edge, “to think that love has anything to do with marriage.”
“Why?”
“Because marriage at our rank is a contract between families—as you well know.”
“But can’t it be more?”
“You’re deliberately being obtuse,” she said impatiently. “You don’t need me to explain society’s rules to you.”
“And you’re being deliberately thickheaded. My parents had it.”
“What?”
“Love,” he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “They loved each other. I know it’s rare, but it is possible, even if you’ve never seen it—”
“My parents, too.”
It was his turn to look confused. “What?”
Her head was bent so that he saw only her mouth, curved down in sadness. “My parents. I have memories of… of a deep affection between them.”
He remembered suddenly—awfully—that her parents had been killed. It had been a cause célèbre over fifteen years before—the Duke and Duchess of Wakefield murdered outside a theater by common footpads. “I’m sorry.”
She inhaled and glanced up, her face unbearably vulnerable for a moment. “Don’t be. Hardly anyone mentions them to me. It’s as if they’d never existed. I was in the schoolroom when they died, but I have a few fond memories of them, before… before it happened.”
He nodded, feeling a protective tenderness for this proud, prickly woman. They strolled in silence for a moment, the crowd surging around them, but making no contact. It was as if they were strangely apart. Griffin inclined his head to one or two people as they met, but he kept walking, forestalling conversation.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said after a bit. “Marriage with love between the partners is surely the ideal.”
“Then why settle for less?”
“Love may grow between a husband and a wife after marriage.”
“It also may not grow.”
She shrugged, looking pensive. “All marriages are gambles of a sort. One tries to even the odds by choosing wisely—a man who is well liked, comes from a good family, and is kind.”
“And the Readings do have a lack of madness in the family that is somewhat refreshing in aristocratic lineages,” he murmured.
She wrinkled her nose up at him. “Would you rather I marry into a family with a history of madness?”
“No, of course not.” He frowned, trying to articulate why her rather cold-blooded decision to marry his brother bothered him. Lord knew he wasn’t worried about Thomas’s heart. “You said yourself that a love match is ideal. Why not wait to make one?”
“I have waited. I’ve been out for over six years.”
“You’ve been looking for true love all this time?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, obviously irritated. “Or something like true love. Besides, how long would you have me wait? Months? Years? I’m four and twenty. I have an obligation to marry and marry well. I cannot wait forever.”
“An obligation.” The words were sour on his tongue, though the thought wasn’t new. Didn’t all ladies of her rank have an “obligation” to make a good match?
She shook her head. “What if I met my true love at sixty? What if I never meet him? There is no guarantee that I will. Would you have me remain a spinster on some faint hope?”
He glanced at her curiously. “You believe that you do have one true love?”
“Perhaps not one true love, but someone, surely. I think… yes, I think that we are each certainly capable of falling in love—perhaps deeply in love—and that somewhere out there is a person who will reciprocate that love.” She wrinkled her nose, suddenly looking self-conscious. “You no doubt find talk of true love foolish.”
“Not at all. I do know romantic love is real. I’ve seen it, after all.”
“And do you think a rake such as you could fall madly, deeply in love with one woman?” Her words were meant to mock, but her tone was serious.
He shrugged. “Perhaps, though it sounds a deucedly uncomfortable state to find oneself in.”
“Then you’ve never been in love?”
“Never.”
She nodded. “Nor have I.”
“A pity,” he said, pursing his lips. “I wonder how it would feel? To be swept away by a grand passion? To give everything for only one person in the world?”
Her lips curved wryly. “So idealistic for a rake. Really, you do spoil my prior understanding of what the word entailed.”
“This is my social face,” he said lightly. “Don’t confuse it with the animal beneath.”
She looked at him searchingly for a moment before nodding as if coming to a conclusion. “I’m hardly likely to do that considering how I first found you.”
He smiled to cover a twinge of disappointment.
“But if you’re so idealistic, my lord,” she said, “about the connubial state, then why aren’t you happily married with a score or more of offspring?”
“I’m idealistic about love, my lady, not marriage. To be tied to one lady for the rest of my life, surrounded by small, grubby urchins?” He shuddered in mock horror. “No, I shall gladly cede the matrimonial state and all its attendant duties to my brother.”
“And if you do one day find yourself in love?” she asked softly. “What then, my lord?”
“Why, then, all shall be lost, my lady. A rake’s life crumbled to ruins, a splendid specimen of the bachelor state brought low by the bonds of matrimony and a delicate hand. But”—he lifted an admonishing finger—“that is, as you yourself have pointed out, very, very unlikely. My one true love may be a lady living in farthest China. She might be a crone of ninety or a babe of two. I may never meet her in this lifetime, and I thank God in advance for that fact.”