“You are my lording me,” Nick said, getting back up. “Though we do need butter.” He rummaged in the larder and emerged with a dish of butter, sniffing at it delicately. “I’ve warned my steward every year since I bought this place not to let the cows into the upper pasture until the chives are done, but he ignores me, and we get the occasional batch of onion butter.”

“This passes muster?” Leah asked, accepting the butter and a knife from him.

“It does.” Nick resumed his seat on the bench beside her. “Will I pass muster?”

“Are you referring to your proposal?” He watched while Leah put a generous amount of butter on her bread.

“I am.” Nick took the knife and butter from her. “You are not afraid to use enough butter so you can taste it.”

“I like butter.” Leah considered her sandwich while Nick built his own. “And as much as I want to be upset with you for the terms you offer, I find I like you too. Then too, marriage is still considered by most titled families to be a dynastic undertaking. Other things—love, passion, personal preference—are not of great moment.”

They were of great moment to Nick, and yet her words nourished his hopes in a way having nothing to do with food. He studied his sandwich. “You’ll have me then?”

“I’m not sure. I need a little more time to think.”

Damn the luck. “That’s my girl.” Nick patted her hand approvingly. “If I’m going to offer you half measures, then you should at least make me sweat for it.”

“Are you serious, teasing, or complaining?”

“I’m serious.” Nick bit into his sandwich and chewed in thoughtful silence for a moment. If he were to start in complaining, he’d be at it until autumn. “If I could offer you more, Leah, I would. Or I think I would.”

“Thank you, I think,” Leah replied, her tone ironic. “You’re prepared for the fact that I have no dowry?”

“I am.” Nick felt an odd lifting in his chest. She’d meant it when she said she liked him, and whatever temper he’d put her in yesterday, she was navigating her way through it.

“If I’m not to provide you the services of a wife in truth, much less progeny, then I at least want to earn my upkeep.”

“You don’t need to earn your upkeep, Leah.” Nick scowled over at her as she munched her sandwich. “For God’s sake, you’re a lady.”

“How many estates do you control?”

This was not a question from a woman who intended to reject a proposal, so Nick launched into the litany, including the offshore properties.

Leah grimaced. “That must keep you busy.”

“Endlessly, and I hate it, but Beck is entitled to ramble around until he wants to settle down, because he has already traveled for us extensively, and George and Dolph are still at university.”

“If I were your wife,” Leah said slowly, “could you use some help with it all?”

Now he was going to complain, plain and simple. “What kind of help is there? An avalanche of correspondence lands on my desk in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and it all must be dealt with posthaste if civilization is not to topple on account of my neglect.”

“How is your French?”

“Spoken?” Nick shot her a leer. “Adequate for my purposes, but written? Deplorable. Spanish and Portuguese, similar.”

“My French is excellent,” Leah said. “You should either hire a factor on the Peninsula who can communicate in English, or hire a secretary to come in one day a week who can manage the Iberian languages, if not those and the French.”

Nick paused in the assembly of a second sandwich and stared at her. Della had probably told him the same thing, though he could not recall exactly when. “Suppose I should at that.”

“It would be easy enough to hire such a person.” She regarded Nick’s second sandwich. “If you’re going to take your seat in the Lords, you’ll need a parliamentary wife.”

Which was something else he hadn’t wanted to think about. “My stepmother excelled at such. Bellefonte would have been useless without her.”

“You will never be useless,” Leah scoffed, reaching for an orange. “I think you would enjoy the intensity of the political process.”

He hadn’t considered he might enjoy any part of it. “Not the tedium. Not that at all.”

“How active was your father?” Leah asked, tearing a hunk of rind from the fruit. The explosion of scent and juice had her bringing the orange to her nose for a long whiff. She closed her eyes to sniff the zest, then opened them slowly and blinked at him.

What had she asked?

“My father was very active in politics,” Nick said, “until he fell ill a few years ago. Are you going to inhale that thing or finish peeling it?”

“Maybe both.” Leah smiled at him over the ripe fruit. “I can probably also be of use to you with regard to your siblings, Nicholas.”

He could hardly focus on her words, so aware had Nick become of Leah’s physical presence beside him. It was that damned orange, the way she looked when she closed her eyes like that, and the knowledge that under her night rail and nightgown, she was likely naked.

Her skin would bear the scent of the household’s guest soap, redolent of roses and lily of the valley.

“Here.” Leah passed Nick three sections of orange, stuck together. “Your disposition looks like it needs sweetening.”

“I am merely tired. I need an infusion of Valentine’s music to soothe me.”

“He plays so well,” Leah agreed, popping a section of orange into her mouth. “I’ve wondered what it feels like, to have such talent literally in your hands.”

“It’s more than his hands, it’s in his heart too,” Nick mused, watching as Leah licked orange juice from the heel of her hand, then reached for the second orange.

“I am already a sticky mess,” Leah said, “let me peel this one for you.” She took the second orange and made short work of it, while Nick watched and tried not to let the words “sticky mess” play havoc with his brain. When she was done, she split the entire orange in half and put each half on the empty plate, save one section.

The last one, she passed to Nick, but rather than put it in his hand, she brought it directly to his lips, as if she fed large, hungry men from her own hand every evening. Nick accepted the morsel, chewed, swallowed, and kept his eyes on her as she rose to wash her hands at the sink.

Marriage to this woman was going to flay his wits, incessantly.

“My thanks, Leah. How much longer will you need to consider the possibility of marrying me?”

Leah cocked her head and frowned at him. “Not long. Will you speak to my father?”

“Not until I have an answer from you. I’ve already spoken to Amherst, and he favors the match, guardedly.”

Leah’s brows shot up—she had the most graceful arch to her brows. “Guardedly?”

“Your older brother is a romantic. He wants you to have a knight in shining armor, one smitten with your charms and swooning at your feet.” Nick wanted her to have the very same things, which was a bad joke of divine proportions.

“Heavens. I’d settle for an occasional heartfelt sigh.”

“Amherst is going to settle for letting me keep you safe,” Nick said, noting for the first time how red her hair looked by subdued light. “I hope you do as well.”

“We’ll see. Can you give me a week? I’m sure you want an answer sooner rather than later, but I really do need some time.”

Her tone suggested she was considering whether to add another hat to a collection already grown too large, nothing more.

“Why?” Nick, having ingested half the orange sections, sat back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “My offer will not change.”

Leah dried her hands on a towel, briskly, as if concluding her interest in the topic of marrying him. “Mustn’t be petulant, my lord. I can, however, see your father’s situation makes you impatient, and understandably so. I expect if we do become engaged, you will want to marry by special license.”