"Well," Simon began carefully, "it is hard to say."
"Not that it signifies at the moment," she told him cheerfully. "I am working on a major project and it will be some time before I get back to Verses on a Summer Day Beside a Pond."
"A major project?" Somehow the conversation was beginning to get away from him, Simon realized.
"Yes, I am calling it The Mysterious Lady. It is to be a long epic poem of adventure and the darker passions in the manner of Byron." She glanced up at him shyly. "You are the only one besides the members of the literary society whom I have told about it thus far, my lord."
"I am honored," Simon drawled. "Adventure and dark passions, eh?"
"Oh, yes. It is all about a young woman with hair the color of a wild sunset who goes in search of her lover who has disappeared. They were to be married, you see. But her family disapproved of him and forbade them to see each other. He was obliged to take his leave. But before he left he gave her a ring and assured her he would be back to carry her off and marry her in spite of her family."
"But something went wrong with the plan?"
"Yes. He has not returned and the heroine knows he is in trouble and needs her desperately."
"How does she know that?" Simon inquired.
"She and the hero are so close, so united by their pure and noble passion for each other that they are capable of communicating on a higher plane. She just knows he is in trouble. She leaves home and hearth to search for him."
"A rather risky business. Perhaps he simply used her parents' disapproval as an excuse to abandon her. Perhaps he had gotten tired of her and being kicked out by her family was a neat way to extricate himself from the embarrassment of an entanglement he did not want." As soon as he had said the words, Simon wanted to kick himself. The appalled expression on Emily's face was enough to touch what small bit of conscience he had left.
"Oh, no," Emily breathed. "It was not like that at all."
"Of course it wasn't," Simon said, forcing a grim smile. "I was merely teasing you. You must forgive me. How could I know the story behind your poem? You are the one writing it."
"Precisely. And I promise you it will have a happy ending. I prefer happy endings, you see."
"Tell me something, Miss Faringdon. If someone gave you ten thousand pounds today, what would you do with it?"
The otherworldly excitement vanished as if by magic. Behind the lenses of her spectacles, Emily's dreamy gaze turned abruptly shrewd at his sudden question. Razor sharp intelligence glittered like green fire in those elfin eyes. "I would buy several shares of stock in a new canal venture I have recently learned about, perhaps buy some bank stock, and then put some money into the four percents. I would be careful with the latter, however. The tiresome war against Napoleon will soon be over and the values of the funds might well drop. One must be ready to move swiftly when one is dealing with government money."
"Excellent," he muttered under his breath. "I just wanted to make certain I had the right female. For a moment there I had begun to wonder."
Emily blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind. A private joke." Simon smiled down at her. "Your financial advice makes very good sense, Miss Faringdon. Your strategy and mine are very much the same."
"Oh. Do you gamble on 'Change?"
"Among other things. I have a wide variety of financial interests." He brought the horses to a halt and tied the reins to two nearby trees. Then he took Emily's arm and guided her over to a large boulder beside the pond.
He watched her sit down and gracefully adjust the heavy skirts of her habit. For a moment he was distracted by the movement of her hands as she dealt with the thick folds. Then he brought himself up short. Time to get back to the purpose at hand, Simon thought.
"You cannot imagine what this means to me," he announced as he sat down beside her and studied the pond. "I have often pictured this place in my mind. And when I did, I always pictured you beside me. After I read your poem I knew you appreciated this spot as much as I do."
She looked around, frowning intently at the grassy banks and shallow, pebble-lined pond. "Do you think I got it right, my lord? Are you sure you recognized this exact spot from the description in my verses?"
Simon followed her gaze, remembering all the times he had come here in his lonely youth, seeking refuge from his cold tyrant of a father and peace from the endless demands of his weak-spirited, constantly ailing mother. "Yes, Miss Faringdon. I would have known this place anywhere."
"It is so beautiful. I come here quite often to be alone and to think about my epic, The Mysterious Lady. Now that I know you were once accustomed to sit and meditate here, the place will have even more meaning for me."
"You flatter me."
"I merely speak the truth. It is odd, is it not?" She turned to him, her brows knitting together in an earnest expression. "But I have felt very close to you from the moment I read your first letter. Do you not find it the most amazing stroke of fate that we discovered each other through the post?"
"A most amazing stroke." Simon thought about how many weeks he had spent researching the best approach to take with Miss Emily Faringdon. A letter written to her on the pretext of having heard mention of her interest in poetry had finally seemed the quickest, easiest way to get a foot back in the door of St. Clair Hall.
"I knew from your first letter that you were someone very special, my lord."
"It was I who was struck by the impression that I was corresponding with a very special female." Gallantly, Simon picked up her hand and kissed it.
She smiled mistily. "I had dreamed so long of a relationship such as ours," she confessed.
He slanted her an assessing glance. Easier and easier. The woman was already half in love with him. Once again Simon slammed the door on that niggling sense of guilt that played in some distant corner of his mind. "Tell me, Miss Faringdon, just how do you view our relationship?"
She blushed, but her eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm. "A very pure sort of relationship, my lord. A relationship formed on a higher plane, if you know what I mean."
"A higher plane?"
"Yes. The way I see it, ours is quite clearly an intellectual connection. It is a noble thing of the mind, a relationship that takes place in the metaphysical realm. It is a friendship based on shared sensibilities and mutual understanding. One might say we have a spiritual communion, my lord. A union untainted by baser thoughts and considerations. Our passions are of the highest order."
"Hell and damnation," Simon said.
"My lord?"
She looked up at him with such inquiring innocence, he wanted to shake her. She could not be that naive, in spite of her poetry. She was, after all, twenty-four years old and here was that matter of the Unfortunate Incident Gillingham had mentioned.
"I fear you have sadly overestimated my noble virtues, Miss Faringdon," he said bluntly. "I did not come down here to Hampshire to foster a shadowy metaphysical connection with you."
The glow went out of her eyes in an instant. "I beg your pardon, my lord?"
Simon gritted his teeth and retrieved her hand. "I came down here with a far more mundane goal, Miss Faringdon."
"What would that be, sir?"
"I am here to ask your father for your hand in marriage."
The reaction was not at all what he had expected from a spinster with a clouded past who should have been thrilled to hear an earl was going to speak to her father on the subject of marriage.