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"But I would have expected that fact ht make your research on the subject more passionate After all, you are no debutante, Lady Eleanor"

Apparently he also shared Anne’s opinion of her advanced age "I am two-and-twenty I will be three-and-twenty in a matter of a e without investigating the liroup of men into which you had vowed to marry?"

"Yes" She walked down the last few steps Pulling back her skirts, she scooped up a few violets in her hand

He followed her "You’re not really interested ina duke, are you, Lady Eleanor?"

"Not particularly" She pretended to smell the wet blossoms in her hand

"Why not?"

The words hung in the damp air She instinctively looked about the baths to see if there was anyone who ht be able to hear them

Villiers descended another step and stopped beside her "Are you already married?"

She smiled faintly "No" She met his eyes "Quite the opposite"

"The opposite?" He knit his brow "Am I to understand that you have announced your intention toyour availability for e?"

"Exactly"

"And yet you are willing to consider matrimony with me? After all, you didn’t turn on your heel, not even afterrevelation"

She let one of the flowers drift fro his eyes "I was young and impetuous when I announced my ambition to marry a duke"

"Surely you knew that the chance of a noble himself was slim"

"Of course"

"You declared that you wouldfull well that no one was likely to propose, since there are so few of us I see"

"You do?"

"As you rereat deal and I certainly understand desire"

"Oh" Eleanor was a bit uncertain about what had happened to the subject of their conversation "Are you saying that you understand my desire?"

"You should not throw your life away, Lady Eleanor, simply because you love elsewhere"

"How did you know that?" She looked up at him

"You just told me"

"I did?" He had rely uninterested, and yet apparently they saw everything

"I am not a conventional man," Villiers stated

With a start, Eleanor realized that if she did decide to inity or, specifically, her lack thereof "Given your proree that you have no claim to conventionality"

One corner of his mouth quirked up It had a remarkably beautiful shape, actually "Oh, you’d be surprised Men do the e women who commit even a tenth of the follies they enjoy"

"That’s true" Gideon was the only man she kneas punctilious as a Puritan when it came to virtue, as passionate about his honor as he had been about her

"My point is that I am not a prude when it comes to human desire I kno inconvenient it can be"