“You’ve been proposed to before,” he said, joining her before the hearth, “and that did not end well. I’m asking for permission to court you. I considered going through an intermediary—Major MacKay, Vicar Delancey—but you would rather be approached directly, so here I am.”

Here he was, blathering on about drover’s roads and warhorses. Ye gods and little fishes, she would think him daft, and maybe that’s what all those clever poetical fellows meant when they referred to love as a form of madness.

“You are here,” she said, “explaining to me how your extraordinary mind works, though I hardly grasp the explanation, and finding virtue in me where others have seen only bumbling and pigheadedness. I will not, on my most biddable day, be a restful or biddable wife.”

“We all bumble, Matilda. I certainly have, spectacularly. What you call pigheadedness, I call determination, and I love you for it.”

“Oh, you…” She turned away and pretended to resume studying Mama’s portrait. “I might look to you as if I’m quite in possession of myself, but this morning, I was polishing silver, and now you expect me to consider… A countess must be presented at court, for pity’s sake. You cannot just say you love me, Tremont. I am a difficult woman, and proud of it.”

“I haven’t said those words to anybody else. I love you, I am smitten, I am besotted and knocked top over tail. You are not difficult. You make perfect sense to me, though your life has been difficult. So, in its way, has mine, and I think we would rub along together quite well.”

She whirled to face him again. “That was Harry’s reasoning. He wanted my respectability and my dowry. I wanted marriage. We were to rub along, and we did, and it wasn’t all awful, but much of it was nightmarish. I’m through with rubbing along, Marcus. You will have to do better.”

Marcus. Though still not a yes. Tremont considered the lady before him, considered what she was leaving unsaid.

“I am happy to do the whole courting quadrille. I will enjoy it, in fact, though driving out in an open vehicle this time of year takes fortitude and warm clothing. If there’s a winter assembly at St. Mildred’s, I will attentively escort you. I will walk with you to and from services and call upon you at the proper hour.” He was running out of ideas, because Matilda was not the blushing heiress an earl was supposed to pursue.

“That isn’t the sort of doing better I had in mind, sir.”