His smile. His masculine physique. His teasing charm. All of it paled when compared with this animated version of Barry Aberdeen as he spoke about botany.
As if he felt her stare, Barry looked over, and the moonlight played off the sharp planes of his cheeks, highlighting the endearing color there. “I’m sure this is entirely more than you wished to know.”
“No,” she said on a rush. “Not at all.” She ran her fingers over the petals of one closed pink bloom. “I confess I’ve not truly given thought of flowers beyond admiring them.” Leaning forward, Meredith closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, filling her nose with the sweet fragrance. When she opened them, she stared wistfully at the bud. “I don’t know that I’ve ever felt about anything the way you do about botany.”
Feeling his gaze burning into her, Meredith looked up, embarrassment stinging her cheeks. “I trust it is a sad commentary on my life.” A life that she’d thought was otherwise complete.
“How so?” he murmured, drifting closer.
Meredith palmed the silken flower and clenched tight. “I’ve not allowed myself to find or feel joy.”
Had it been a punishment? Had she simply been lost in work? Or had it been a combination of both?
“That’s not true, Mare.”
She frowned, and her annoyance had nothing to do with that moniker and everything to do with his bold assumption. “You don’t know that, Barry.”
“I saw you fishing today. And more?” He took a step closer, and the gravel churned loudly under his boots until he stopped beside her. “And I knew you when you wore the same smile while swimming naked in the heart of summer,” he murmured.
She gasped.
Only, he continued on with words that were not teasing, but solemn in their deliverance. “I saw you when you were speaking with the horses.”
The peace she’d found in the stables had come long before Patrin and her girlish excitement to seek out her sweetheart.
“You loved the stables.” Again, he spoke with the ease of one who knew her. And by everything he’d seen and gathered about how she’d lived then, and how she lived now, he knew her better than she mayhap knew herself.
Meredith burrowed deeper into Barry’s jacket as she wandered down the graveled path. “I did.” She’d loved the duke’s horses and the barn cats. That shared interest was how she’d come to first notice Patrin. She pushed thoughts of him back, not allowing him to intrude on this moment with Barry.
She felt Barry move into position behind her. Felt him leaning close, his breath caressing the sensitive shell of her ear as he spoke. “I recall you racing through the countryside—”
“Barefoot,” she chimed in, angling her head back to meet his eyes.
“—barefoot.”
They shared a smile.
Then his lips returned to their previous, serious line as Barry took her lightly by the shoulders, bringing her so close their bodies touched.
Meredith tipped her head back to meet his blazing eyes.
“You may have forgotten what it is to enjoy life, but never doubt that you once did so unapologetically,” he said quietly. His baritone wound about her senses, wreaking havoc. “And you can… and will do so again.” Those words proved even more quixotic.
His thick, golden lashes swept low did little to conceal the glint of desire in his eyes.
Her heart continued to dance a maddening rhythm, and she was certain it would never resume its regular safe cadence.
Then Barry lowered his head. And the whisper of brandy on his breath, softened by a trace of mint, proved headier than any of the glorious smells in the duchess’s gardens.
He is going to kiss me.
He eased his jacket from her shoulders, the cool night air proved to be a balm upon her heated skin.
He is going to kiss me, and I want that… and more from him.
In this moment, unlike the others that had come before, there was no guilt. There was just the glorious thrill of being in his arms and being alive and simply feeling. She tipped her head back farther to receive his kiss, but there was to be no embrace.
Why did he not kiss me?
She’d wager her soul on Sunday that, by the smile ghosting his lips, he knew precisely the scandalous path of her thoughts.
Barry tweaked her nose.
Tweaked her nose? Just like she’d flicked his as a girl. “What are your plans for me, Miss Duranseau?”
Miss… Duranseau? Who?
The use of her falsified name had the same effect as water being tossed over her heated body, effectively cooling her. “What?”
Barry gave her an odd look. “Morning meetings are mine. Evening sessions are yours,” he reminded, casually shrugging into his midnight-black jacket.
Her role as matchmaker. His need of a bride. He spoke of their arrangement.
“We shall meet in the library.”
His thick lashes swept down. Had he gathered those barriers she’d sought to resurrect between them? “Until then, love.”
And with that, he left.
Meredith stared after him, and after he’d closed the door and gone, her entire body sagged.
“What in blazes has come over you?” she exclaimed into the quiet, needing to hear that chastisement from someone… even if it was herself. Her entire purpose in being here was to coordinate a union between Barry and some noble-born lady.
She’d do well to remember that before she did something foolish… like fall in love with a man destined to wed another.
Chapter 11
Several hours later, Barry stepped into the library and promptly burst into laughter.
As anticipated, Meredith was there.
Just not as he’d expected her.
A desk better suited to a schoolroom had been brought into the room and positioned at the center, a shell-back chair alongside it. And there, seated like a stern headmistress, was a very stern, very composed, and by the frown between her brows, a very much displeased Meredith Durant.
“What?” Meredith asked, a defensive edge to her voice.
Barry only laughed all the harder. “What in blazes is this?” he managed to strangle out.
Sailing to her feet, Meredith folded her arms at her chest. “As I explained to your mother when agreeing to the post, there is a… way I conduct my business.”
He pushed the door closed behind him and pressed the lock. “Said business being me?” When he turned back, he matched her positioning, folding his arms in a like manner.
“Said business being our arrangement together.”
“You’re splitting hairs.” Looping his right palm in a circle, he motioned her on. “Well, on with it. I am ever eager to hear this one, love.”
Meredith tugged a page from her desk and brandished the list of names. “The entire purpose of my being here is to coordinate a match between you and one of the ladies present.”
“Yes,” he said, perching his hip on the edge of a side table. “As if I could forget.” Except, with their every exchange, he had. He’d simply enjoyed being with her. There was no obsequious fawning because he was a future duke. There were no aspirations for his title because of the wealth and influence a marriage to him would bring. Barry eyed the stack of notepads, the inkwell and pen, the row of pencils. He gave his head a rueful shake. “Does it ever occur to you that yours is an austere approach to marriages and love?”
She bristled. “I beg your pardon?”
He straightened and joined her at the neat workstation she’d had arranged. “You are certainly not forgiven.”
On a huff, Meredith let her arms fall to her sides. “I was certainly not apologizing, my lord.” There it was. The use of his title. As though, with the proper form of address, she sought to remind them both of the divide between them. “There is nothing austere in what I do.”
He picked up a notebook and waved it under her nose. “Isn’t there?”
Meredith swiped the leather pad from his fingers. “Give me that.” Muttering under her breath, sh
e set to work reorganizing her pile. “Do you have any idea how many matches I’ve helped coordinate over the past eight and a half years?”
She’d been doing this for eight and a half years, then. And their paths had never crossed. How close they’d been to each other, and yet, they’d moved throughout London as strangers. That idea left him oddly melancholy. “I trust you’ll tell—”
“Thirty-seven.”
That gave him pause. It was a testament to the amount of work she’d done and the success she’d had. “Thirty-seven happy marriages,” he drawled. “The number of unions you’ve coordinated, however, does not happiness make.”
“All the marriages I’ve coordinated have been happy ones.” She proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “The Earl and Countess of Marbury, so in love they…”
“Left London,” he murmured. He’d heard tale of the former rake who’d wed the spinster bluestocking.
Meredith lifted another ink-stained digit. “There is Lord Aster, who loved to travel, and the now Lady Aster, who dreamed of touring the globe, but would have never been able to do so under her family’s constraints.”
The Asters were rumored to be one of Society’s greatest love matches, and Meredith had paired them together. Despite himself and his views on the mercenary role she served, he found himself wholly impressed.
“Shall I continue?” she asked smugly.
“I trust you intend to anyw—”
“The Viscount and Viscountess of Tenderly.”
He whistled. “Lord and Lady Tenderness.” As the couple was affectionately referred to amongst the ton. The viscount had been a beast of a man with a perpetual snarl—Society had avoided him at all costs—and yet, since his marriage, none recognized any hint of the beast in the grinning, besotted husband he’d become.
Meredith spread her arms wide, as though presenting a delicious offering. “And I can do the same for you, my lord.”
“You mean you can change me.” That was what the world had been doing where Barry was concerned since… well, since he’d come into the damned world.
Frowning, Meredith let her slender limbs fall atop the table. “Of course not. I don’t change or seek to change anyone. Rather, I…” She paused, her brow wrinkling as she considered her words. “Find the interests each young lady carries and help pair her with a gentleman of like pursuits. Invariably, sharing those passions brings together men and women whom the world would not have otherwise thought to bring together.”
Hearing her practice laid out gave him pause. Hers wasn’t the ruthless plotting he’d expected for… well, any matchmaker—either for hire or born to the peerage. She spoke of mutual interests and shared affections, and those alone set her apart from… well, every woman he knew.
As if she sensed his weakening, Meredith smiled again and gestured to the chair nearest to him.
He narrowed his eyes, watching the minx between the thin slits. With the ease she’d gone about divesting him of the opinion he’d carried for her and her work, he’d be wise to be wary. Wordlessly, he tugged out the chair and seated himself.
An entirely too-pleased-with-herself smile on her lips, Meredith dragged the chair on the opposite side of the desk so that they were seated across from each other, two players upon a battlefield. In a way, that was what they were. “Now, shall we begin?”
“Given I’ve already seated myself, I trust that was the general plan?”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
Clasping his hands behind him, Barry kicked back on the legs of his chair. “I’m awaiting your magic, Mare.”
“Miss Duranseau. When we are working, I’m Miss Duranseau, and you are my lord.”
“I’m waiting for you, then, Miss Duranseau.” God, she was delightful to tease. He could almost forget that the minx sat there with a ruthless intent to marry him off to one of his mother’s houseguests.
Meredith glanced about, and when she returned her focus to him, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “There is a secret to finding a spouse.”
His lips twitched. Righting his chair, he lowered his elbows atop the table and leaned forward. “Surely not.”
“I’m going to ignore your sarcasm, Barry. And when you finally find yourself paired with a lady who makes you so deliriously happy that you can’t remember your name, I’m going to take great delight in reminding you of this moment.”
Never. That moment would never come. Not with the sea of debutantes salivating for a title and caring not at all about the man.
“You don’t believe me.” Meredith smirked. “That is fine. Your eventual happiness will be thanks enough.”
“And your two thousand pounds, I trust,” he said drolly.
She blushed. “Three.”
“I was merely searching. She’s paying even more than I expected.” The sizable fortune would see Meredith comfortable for life, and despite his earlier anger at her duplicitous role in aiding his mother, he could not begrudge her taking on the assignment. “By that sum, she is very determined to see me wedded off.”
The color in her cheeks deepened. “I’ll have you know it isn’t about the money.”
Barry gave her a look. “Some of it is,” he felt inclined to point out.
“Yes. Because most of us don’t have land and fortunes awaiting us, Barry. In fact, most of us need to use our wits and skills in order to have the security that you’ve been afforded since birth.”
Just like that, he found himself properly chastised. Shame smarted in his chest. “Meredith,” he said softly.
She snorted. “I’m not giving you a woe-is-me tale, Barry,” she said pragmatically. “I’m merely speaking on a matter of fact.” How confident, how strong she was, when any other woman would have crumpled. And God help him, he fell a little bit in love with her in that moment. “Now, where were we?” she asked.
“You were realizing that there’s no way I’m going to agree to a match with any lady handpicked by my mother.”
Her lips twitched. “That was not it.”
Leaning forward, he whispered, “I know.” He followed that with another wink.
“You’re incorrigible. As I was explaining, there is a secret to finding the spouse with whom you long to spend forever.” She paused, and despite his earlier baiting, something in her tone compelled him forward. “It is to simply be yourself.”
He cocked his head. “What?”
She nodded. “Be yourself, and only be with someone who doesn’t put up pretenses around you. Those are the couples who invariably marry… and remain happy,” she quickly added.
You. I’m able to be myself with you.
The staggering realization knocked him off-balance and sent his heart climbing into his throat. From terror. Confusion. And he forced it back.
“Tell me this, Meredith,” he murmured, resting his forearms on the table. “If you’ve discovered the secret to love, then how is it you yourself are still unwed?” he asked without inflection.
“Because I was already in love, and it did not work out for me.”
Of any answer she could have given, that was the last one he’d expected.
His body went simultaneously hot and cold with a whole torrent of emotions roiling through him, making it impossible to discern all of it but one: rage. Red-hot and palpable.
All business, she gathered the top notepad, drew it over to her side of the desk, and opened it. “Now, continuing on,” she said, flipping through a quarter of the filled pages before Barry managed to move.
He shot a hand out, staying her in midturn.
Meredith looked up.
“Surely you don’t expect to say that and nothing more.”
“What else is there to say? I fell in love, I had my heart broken, but good came of it. I was able to see the dangers of making the wrong match.”
“And yet, you’re completely capable of determining what is best for others?” he asked slowly.
“Precisely.”
He shook his head. “I don’t
understand.”
“How to explain it?” Meredith chewed at the end of her pencil. Suddenly, she stopped. “I have crooked teeth.”
Barry’s mouth moved, and words were slow to follow. When they emerged, they came out wrapped in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“My teeth.” Pulling back her lips in a stretched smile, she revealed pearl-white teeth, the bottom row flawlessly even and the top nearly so but for the exception of the front two. A smidgeon too close, they angled in toward each other.
They were endearingly perfect.
“It’s these,” she clarified, tapping a nail against the area in question. “I was teased mercilessly by several of the village boys.”
He scowled. “Who? And how was I not aware of this?” He’d have bloodied the little bastards’ noses.
“Because you were four when I was eight and… do pay attention. My father would forever praise my smile. It was one to rival an angel’s, he’d say.”
And it was… odd that his captivation didn’t rouse a greater sense of panic. Mayhap it was because the minx was thoroughly confounding.
“But he couldn’t see the reality, because he was too close to me.”
He processed that logic. “And so… you’re too close to matters of your own heart.”
She pointed at him. “Exactly. I can step back and look objectively at other women and the men who might be deserving of their hearts. I’m not as proficient at knowing what is best for me in matters of the heart.” With an air of finality, Meredith licked the tip of her index finger and turned to the next page in her notepad.
“That was what you took away from your foray into love?” he asked incredulously.
Meredith shrugged. “I’m not sure there is a more important piece to take away from it.”
“Because you chose wrong once, it means the man whom you were meant to be with is still out there, and you are at risk of missing out on a lifetime of love for yourself because you’re too afraid of committing the same mistake twice.”
He braced for her expected outburst. His words hovered in the air for a long while.
The tension eased from her face, softening her features. “Barry Aberdeen, are you a romantic?”
A Matchmaker for a Marquess Page 14