With This Ring by Carla Kelly Page B

mother. He had rather delicate
handwriting, so that was not a worry ….”
    She gasped. “He has been writing for
three years ….”
    “ Two, actually, with lots of help
from almost everyone in the battery.”
    “…  to your poor
mother?”
    “ And my aunt. They can’t wait to
meet Lady Laren.” He scratched his head. “Matter of fact, neither
can I. I’m certainly ripe for suggestions, Miss Perkins.” He took a
long look at her, and she stood up quickly and started to back
away, even before he continued. “Are you interested in getting
married?”
     
     

Chapter Six
    M ajor Reed
laughed and motioned her back. “I did not expect a general stampede
to the door!” he protested, his good humor intact. “You wound
me.”
    She returned to the table, quite in
charity with him, since he was so obviously joking. I can certainly
respond in kind, she thought as she sat down again and folded her
hands in front of her. “Dear Major, while I am not insensible to
the honor which you do me, I must decline with regret,” she said.
“There now, I think I said that right.” She dipped the quill in the
ink again and continued her copying. “Seems a pity to turn down my
first offer, Major, but I doubt that you and I would suit.” She
started to laugh again, and he joined in.
    He lay back on his cot again. “You
see my dilemma, Miss Perkins.” He frowned at her. “Your first
offer? I can hardly believe that. What is wrong with the men of
Devon?”
    It was her turn to frown. “Nothing,”
she replied, “once they see my sister. Kitty has had reams of bad
poetry composed in her honor, and more proposals than are strictly
legal, I am sure.”
    “ No one’s captured her heart?” the
major asked, his eyes closing again.
    “ Of course not!” she replied. Kitty
has no heart to capture, she thought. “Mama is convinced that
someone so beautiful must only fall in love with a marquis or an
earl, perhaps a duke. Do have a care if you should chance to stroll
down Holly Street. You are fair game!” she teased.
    He was silent quite a while, and she
thought he had drifted to sleep again. I do not know why a little
exertion won’t help you find a wife, she considered, although I do
not know that two or three weeks is precisely enough. While no jury
would convict you of being handsome, I don’t have any difficulty
looking at you. Although I am no judge, you will probably look just
as nice thirty years from now across the breakfast table. You are
certainly friendly. And stubborn, she added to herself, considering
how you have plagued Horse Guards. And honorable. What other
officer would wear himself out for his men?
    “ Are you reconsidering, Miss
Perkins?”
    “ No!” she retorted, startled into
smudging the paper, certain that her face was red. “You cannot
possibly succeed with this harebrained notion.”
    He thought about it. “I believe I
would rather have the wife of my bosom meet with a fatal accident
than have to admit that she was a figment of my imagination,” he
said frankly. “My friends would tease me past bearing, but if it
were an accident, I think I could count on sufficient sympathy from
them to help me bear up.”
    “ You should have thought of all this
when you were scheming in Spain,” she told him, as she smiled at
his wit and wondered why there were no men in Devon with a sense of
humor. “Might I suggest another solution?”
    “ You know I am up for
it.”
    “ The truth.”
    He sat up and looked her in the eye,
and she was hard put to keep a straight face. “Miss Perkins, where
is your sense of adventure? I was lying here wondering how to find
a soldier of fortune who would be willing to murder my aunt. She
has been at death’s door for years and years, and I know she would
really like to stick her spoon in the wall and continue plaguing my
uncle, who escaped from her tongue twenty years ago! And all you
can suggest is the paltry truth.”
    They laughed together. She returned
to the