He took a second or two to ponder that, then said, “You’re right. It never even occurred to me.”
“Well, to be fair, you weren’t planning to have me accompany you today.”
He nodded, smiling at her as she lifted her toast to her mouth.
She froze. “Is something wrong?”
“Why would something be wrong?”
“You’re smiling at me.”
“I’m not allowed to?”
“No, I—Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered under her breath. “Never mind.”
He waved this off. “Consider it forgotten.”
But he was still smiling at her.
It made her very uneasy.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
Really? He was going to ask her that?
“Iris?”
“As well as can be expected,” she answered. As soon as she found her voice.
“That doesn’t sound very promising.”
She shrugged. “It’s a strange room.”
“By that token, you would have had difficulty sleeping the entire journey.”
“I did,” she confirmed.
His eyes clouded with concern. “You should have said something to me.”
If you’d been in my room, you’d have seen for yourself, she wanted to say. Instead she said, “I didn’t want to worry you.”
Richard leaned forward and took her hand, which was a little awkward as she’d been reaching for her tea. “I hope you will always feel comfortable coming to me with your problems.”
Iris tried to keep her face impassive, but she had a feeling she was looking at him as if he were some sort of zoo exhibit. It was lovely that he was acting with such concern, but they were only talking about a few nights of disrupted sleep. “I’m sure I shall,” she said with an uneasy smile.
“Good.”
She glanced about the room awkwardly. He was still holding her hand. “My tea,” she finally said, tipping her head in the direction of the cup.
“Of course. So sorry.” But when he let go, his fingers slid along hers like a caress.
A little frisson of awareness danced up her arm. He had that lovely, lazy smile on his face again, the one that made her feel rather warm inside. He was trying to seduce her again. She was sure of it.
But why? Why would he treat her with such warmth only to reject her? He was not that cruel. He could not be.
She took a hasty sip of her tea, wishing he would stop looking at her so intently. “What was your mother like?” she blurted out.
That seemed to disconcert him. “My mother?”
“You’ve never told me about her.” And more to the point, it was not the sort of topic that invited romance. Iris needed a nice innocuous conversation if she was to have any hope of finishing her breakfast.
“My mother was . . .” He seemed not to know what to say.
Iris took another bite of her breakfast, watching him with a serene expression as he wrinkled his nose and blinked a few times. Maybe she was at heart a selfish, petty creature, but she was enjoying this. He flustered her all the time. Surely a little turnabout was fair game.
“She loved to be outside,” he finally said. “She cultivated roses. And other plants, too, but the roses were the only ones I could ever remember the names of.”
“What did she look like?”
“A bit like Fleur, I suppose.” His brow came together as he remembered. “Although her eyes were green. Fleur’s are more hazel—a mix of our parents’。”
“Your father had brown eyes, then?”
Richard nodded, tipping back in his chair.
“I wonder what color eyes our children will have.”
Richard’s chair came down with a thunk, and he spewed tea all over the table. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Lost my balance.”
Iris looked down at her plate, spotted a bit of tea on her toast, and decided she was done with breakfast, anyway. What a strange reaction, though. Surely Richard wanted children? Every man did. Or at least every man who owned land.
“Is Maycliffe entailed?” she wondered.
“Why do you ask?”
“Isn’t it the sort of thing I ought to know?”
“It is not. Entailed, that is. But yes, something you ought to know,” he acknowledged.
Iris found herself a new teacup and poured some more. She wasn’t really thirsty, but she found herself strangely loath to release him from this conversation. “Your parents must have been quite relieved that their firstborn was a boy,” she remarked. “They would not want the property to be separated from the title.”