Free The Arrangement by Mary Balogh Page A

pleasant, more wholesome smell than the harsh perfumes he had been smelling all evening.
    She said nothing.
    “I daresay,” he said, “you are trapped in a life not entirely to your liking by the fact of your parents’ death, just as I am trapped in a life that is not always entirely to
my
liking by the fact that I lost my sight six years ago. How long have you been orphaned?”
    “Five years,” she told him. “My father died when I was fifteen.”
    She was twenty, then.
    “I was seventeen,” he said.
    “So very young.”
    “It is hard, is it not,” he said, “to have one’s life develop quite differently from what one expected and to feel not fully in command of it?”
    It was strange. He never spoke like this to anyone, least of all to a stranger, and a female stranger at that. But perhaps that made it easier. Tomorrow they would still be strangers. What they said tonight would be forgotten.
    “Yes,” she said after a rather lengthy pause.
    “What would you do,” he asked her, “if you could reshape your life to be exactly as you would wish it to be? If you had the means and the opportunity to do whatever you wished? What do you dream of being and doing? I suppose you do have dreams. We all do. What is yours?”
    She was either not going to answer him at all or she was giving the matter some thought. He suspected that Miss Sophia Fry was not someone who chattered aimlessly about nothing. But then, she probably did not have much opportunity to do that. He did not envy her living as a poor relation with the Marches. He liked the idea that she was thoughtful.
    Perhaps she considered his questions idiotic—and perhaps they were. They were the sorts of questions an eager boy asked of a girl. A man and a woman were expected to be anchored in reality.
    “I would live alone,” she said. “In the country. In a little cottage with a garden full of flowers that I could tend. With a vegetable patch at the back and maybe a few chickens. With some friendly neighbors and a cat and maybe a dog. And books. And an endless supply of sketching paper and charcoal. And a sufficient income to supply my needs, which would not be extravagant. Perhaps the chance to learn new things.”
    He had given her the chance to wish for riches and jewels and furs and mansions and foreign travel and the Lord knew what else. He was touched by the modesty of her dream.
    “And a husband and children?” he asked.
    Again he felt her hesitation.
    “No,” she said. “I believe I would be happier alone.”
    He almost asked her why. But he reminded himself that she was a stranger and that the question would be an almost intimate one. He must not be too intrusive.
    He wondered fleetingly what would have happened if he had asked Miss Dean about her dreams. Would she have answered candidly? He ought to have given her the chance, perhaps. He still felt badly about her.
    “It is your turn,” she said in a voice so low that he had to lean closer yet. He could sense her body warmth. He withdrew a couple of inches. He would not embarrass her or give the villagers any cause for gossip. “What are your most secret dreams?”
    “It seems ungrateful to have any when one seemingly has everything,” he said. “I have a title and fortune, a spacious home and a vast park surrounding it. I have a mother and grandmother, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, all of whom love me.”
    “And a dream,” she said when he stopped talking.
    “And a dream,” he admitted. “A dream, like yours, of being on my own, independent and able to manage my own life, even with all its myriad responsibilities. Of being able to send all my female relatives back to the homes they either neglect far too often now or have actually abandoned for my sake. Of not having to have them running my life for me any longer. Of being fully grown up, I suppose I mean, which I would surely have been long ago if I had retained my sight. I cannot regain my sight, and even dreams