The Taste of Innocence Read Free Page B

perfect candidate.
    She halted before him, confidently facing him with less than two feet between them. Confusion shadowed her eyes, a delicate blue the color of a pale cornflower, as she searched his face.
    “Charlie.” She inclined her head. To his surprise, her voice was even, steady if a trifle breathless. “Mama said you wished to speak with me.”
    Head high so she could continue to meet his gaze—the top of her head barely reached his chin—she waited.
    He felt his lips curve, entirely spontaneously. No fuss, no fluster, and no “Lord Charles,” either. They’d never stood on formality, not in any circumstances, and for that he was grateful.
    Despite her outward calm, he sensed the brittle, expectant tension that held her, that kept her breathing shallow. Respect stirred, unexpected but definite, yet was he really surprised that she had more backbone than the norm?
    No; that, in part, was why he was there.
    The urge to reach out and run his fingertips across her collarbone—just to see how smooth the fine alabaster skin was—struck unexpectedly; he toyed with the notion for a heartbeat, but rejected it. Such an action wasn’t appropriate given the nature of what he had to say, the tone he wished to maintain.
    “As I daresay your mother mentioned, I’ve asked your father’s permission to address you. I would like to ask you to do me the honor of becoming my wife.”
    He could have dressed up the bare words in any amount of platitudes, but to what end? They knew each other well, perhaps not in a private sense, but his sisters and hers were close; he doubted there was much in his general life of which she was unaware.
    And there was nothing in her response to suggest he’d gauged that wrongly, even though, after the briefest of moments, she frowned.
    “Why?”
    It was his turn to feel confused.
    Her lips tightened and she clarified, “Why me?”
    Why now? Why after all these years have you finally deigned to do more than smile at me? Sarah kept the words from her tongue, but looking up into Charlie’s impassive face, she felt an almost overpowering urge to sink her hands into her hair, pull loose the neatly arranged tresses, and run her fingers through them while she paced. And thought. And tried to understand.
    She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t had to, every time she first set eyes on him, pause, just for a second, to let her senses breathe. To let them catch their breath after it had been stolen away simply by his presence. Once the moment passed, as it always did, then all she had to do was battle to ensure she did nothing foolish, nothing to give away her secret obsession—infatuation—with him.
    It was nonsense and brought her nothing but aggravation, but no amount of lecturing over its inanity had ever done an ounce of good. She’d decided it was simply the way she reacted to him, Viking-Norman Adonis that he was. She’d reluctantly concluded that her reaction wasn’t her fault. Or his. It just was; she’d been born this way, and she simply had to deal with it.
    And now here he was, without so much as a proper smile in warning, asking for her hand.
    Wanting to marry her.
    It didn’t seem possible. She pinched her thumb, just to make sure, but he remained before her, solid and real, the heat of him, the strength of him wrapping about her in pure masculine temptation, even if now he was frowning, too.
    His lips firmed, losing the intoxicating curve that had softened them. “Because I believe we’ll deal exceptionally well together.” He hesitated, then went on, “I could give you chapter and verse about our stations, our families, our backgrounds, but you already know every aspect as well as I. And”—his gaze sharpened—“as I’m sure you understand, I need a countess.”
    He paused, then his lips quirked. “Will you be mine?”
    Nicely ambiguous. Sarah stared into his gray-blue eyes, a paler shade of blue than her own, and heard again in her mind her mother’s words: