But now, in addition to feeling uncomfortable, he was outraged. She had spoken openly about the desperate condition of Brambledean and his impoverished state. Not that he was personally impoverished. He had spent five years after his father’s death working hard to bring Riddings Park in Kent back to prosperity, and he had succeeded. He had been settling into the comfortable life of a moderately prosperous gentleman when the catastrophe of last year had happened and he had found himself with his unwelcome title and the even more unwelcome encumbrance of an entailed estate that was on the brink of ruin. His moderate fortune had suddenly seemed more like a pittance.
But how dared she—a stranger—make open reference to it? The vulgarity of it had paralyzed his brain for a few moments. She had provided a solution, however, and his head was only just catching up to it. She was wealthy and wanted a husband. He was not wealthy and needed a rich wife. She had suggested that they supply each other’s needs and marry. But—
Miss Heyden, I have not even seen your face.
It was bizarre. It was very definitely the stuff of that sort of dream from which one awoke wondering where the devil it had come from. Some other words of hers suddenly echoed in his mind. In my own person I am not marriageable. What in thunder had she meant?
“No,” she said, breaking the silence, “you have not, have you?” She turned her head to the left to look back at her maid. “Maude, will you open the curtains, please?” The maid did so and Miss Heyden was suddenly bathed in light. Her dress looked more silver than gray. Her veil looked darker in contrast. She raised her hands. “I suppose you must see what you would be getting with my money, Lord Riverdale.”
Was she being deliberately offensive? Or were her words and her slightly mocking manner actually a defense, her way of hiding discomfort? She ought to be uncomfortable. She raised her veil and threw it back over her head to land on the seat of the chair behind her. For a few moments her face remained half turned to the left.
Her hair was a rich chestnut brown, thick and lustrous, smooth at the front and sides, gathered into a cluster of curls high on the back of her head. Her neck was long and graceful. In profile her face was exquisitely beautiful—wide browed with long eyelashes that matched her hair, a straight nose, finely sculpted cheek, soft lips, firmly chiseled jaw, pale, smooth skin. And then she turned full face toward him and raised her eyelids. Her eyes were hazel, though that was a detail he did not notice until later. What he did notice was that the left side of her face, from forehead to jaw, was purple.
He inhaled slowly and mastered his first impulse to frown, even to recoil or actually take a step back. She was looking very directly into his face. There was no distortion of features, only the purple marks, some clustered and darker in shade, some fainter and more isolated. She looked rather as though someone had splashed purple paint down one side of her and she had not yet had a chance to wash it off.
“Burns?” he asked, though he did not think so. There would have been other damage.
“A birthmark,” she said.
He had seen birthmarks, but nothing to match this. What would otherwise have been a remarkably beautiful face was severely, cruelly marred. He wondered if she always wore the veil in public. In my own person I am not marriageable.
“But I am wealthy,” she said.
And he knew that it was indeed self-defense, that look of disdain, that boast of wealth, that challenge of the raised chin and very direct gaze. He knew that the coldness of her manner was the thinnest of veneers. I am twenty-nine years old, very nearly thirty, and I would like someone to wed. And because she was wealthy after the death of her uncle, she could afford to purchase what she wanted. It seemed startlingly distasteful, but was his own decision to go to London this year as soon as the Season began in earnest after Easter to seek a wealthy bride any the less so?
He suddenly remembered something she had said earlier. “Did you also make this offer to Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Richman?” he asked her. Ironic name, that—Richman. His question was ill-mannered, but there was nothing normal about this situation. “Did they refuse?”
“I did not,” she told him, “and so they did not. Although neither was here for longer than half an hour, I knew long before that time expired that neither would suit me. I may wish to wed, Lord Riverdale, but I am not desperate enough to do so at all costs.”
“You have judged, then, that I will suit you, that I am worth the cost?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and clasping his hands behind his back. He was still standing and looking down at her. If she found that fact intimidating, she was not showing it. He would suit her because of his title, would he? Then why had he been third on her list?
“It is impossible to know with any certainty after just half an hour,” she said, “but I believe so. I believe you are a gentleman, Lord Riverdale.”
And the other two were not? “What exactly does that mean?” he asked. Good God, was he willing to stand here discussing the matter with her?
“I believe it means you would treat me with respect,” she said.
He looked down at her disfigured face and frowned. “And that is all you ask of a marriage?” he asked. “Respect?”
“It is a large something,” she said.
Was it? Was it enough? It was something he would surely be asking himself a number of times in the coming months. It was actually a good answer. “And would you treat me with respect if I married you for your money?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said after pausing to think about it. “For I do not believe you would squander that money on your own pleasures.”
“And upon what information do you base that judgment?” he asked her. “By your own admission you have a half hour’s acquaintance with me.”
“But I do know,” she said, “that you have your own well-managed estate in Kent and could choose to live there in comfort for the rest of your life and forget about Brambledean Court. It is what your predecessor chose to do despite the fact that he was a very wealthy man. His wealth went to his daughter instead of to you, however. All you inherited was the title and the entailed property. Yet you have come here and employed a competent steward and clearly intend to take on the Herculean task of restoring the property and the farms and bettering the lives of the numerous people who rely upon you for their livelihood. Those are not the actions of a man who would use a fortune for riotous living.”
She had more than a half hour’s acquaintance with him, then. She had the advantage of him. They looked speculatively at each other.
“The question is,” she said when he did not respond to her words, “could you live with this, Lord Riverdale?” She indicated the left side of her face with one graceful movement of her hand.
He gave the question serious consideration. The birthmark seriously disfigured her. More important, though, it must have had some serious impact upon the formation of her character if it had been there all her life. He had already seen her defensive, slightly mocking manner, her surface coldness, her isolation, the veil. The blemish on her face might be the least of the damage done to her. Her face might be easy enough to live with. It would be cruel to think otherwise. But how easy to live with would she be?
And was he giving serious consideration to her offer? But he must think seriously about some such marriage. And soon. The longer he lived at Brambledean, the more he saw the effects of poverty upon those whose well-being depended upon him.