Courting Susannah by Linda Lael Miller Page B

shoulders were straight and her chin was at a deliberately haughty angle. “It is late,” she said evenly, “and I am quite tired.”
    Aubrey simply stepped back and gestured for her to precede him into his inner sanctum. She swept past him, all pretense and bravado, feeling much as Anne Boleyn must have done on her way to the chopping block.
    â€œSit down,” Aubrey instructed.
    Susannah wanted to flout his command, but that would only prolong the interview. She sat, folding her hands daintily in her lap.
    â€œWhat do you know about Hollister?” Aubrey took the leather chair opposite her, behind his large, cluttered desk.
    â€œThat I like him very much,” Susannah replied honestly. “We are going to church on Sunday, and perhaps for a picnic afterward, if the weather holds.”
    From Aubrey’s expression, one would have thought she’d said she planned to run away with the man and live in flagrant sin for die remainder of her days. “I was under the impression you came here to look after my—Julia’s daughter. Maybe you were looking for a husband instead.”
    A wash of color scalded Susannah’s cheeks, but she managed to hold on to her composure, for all that no suggestion had ever stung her so deeply before or made her angrier. Words crowded into her throat, but she could not force them out, and perhaps that was a good thing, because she wouldn’t have been civil, let alone kind.
    Aubrey sat back in his chair and cupped his hands behind his head. In the glow of the lamp, the masculinegrace of his arms and shoulders seemed to be accentuated by a craggy tracery of shadows. His rich brown hair shimmered, even in that dim light, and it was in disarray, which only added to his roguish appeal. “Of course,” he began airily, “if you
have
set your cap for a husband, you could hardly have come to a better place than Seattle. There’s still a dire shortage of marriageable women here, you know—you could be a bride tomorrow if you wanted.”
    The change in his manner took Susannah very much off-guard. He’d seemed profoundly annoyed when confronting her in the entryway minutes before, but now his aspect was quiet and calm. “Let me assure you,” she said when she found her voice, “I had no such intention, at any time. Nor have I changed my mind—however plentiful the prospects might be.”
    He made a steeple of his fingers and rested his chin on the tip, smiling a little. His eyes were narrowed, but Susannah could not tell whether he was conveying suspicion or merely pondering her statement. “Why,” he asked after some time, “would you wish to remain unmarried all your life?”
    The question was plainly intrusive, and yet, strangely, Susannah’s irritation had ebbed away, and she could not seem to revive it. She sat up a little straighter. “That should be obvious,” she said. Surely Julia had told him, when things were still good between them, that her dear friend Susannah had been left on the shelf, for all that she was passably pretty.
    â€œIt isn’t,” he replied. Obdurate man.
    â€œNo one asked,” she said.
    â€œWould you have accepted, if someone had?”
    She paused to consider her reply. “That depends. I would have had to love the man very much.”
    He was leaning forward in his chair now, looking ather intently, turning a pencil from end to end on the surface of the desk. “Love is an unreliable measure, in a matter so practical as marriage, Susannah. Far better to be wed for sensible reasons.”
    â€œSensible reasons, Mr. Fairgrieve? And what would those be?”
    He shrugged. “Money. Property. Heirs. Companionship in old age.”
    Susannah’s fingers tightened on the arms of her chair. “Julia could never have given you property or money,” she pointed out evenly. “You deny your child, and Julia will never see her old