The Taming of Victoria Colton

Chapter Twenty

Chapter 20

Every woman should, habitually, make the best of herself.

~ The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen (The Last London Editor; 1860)

He could not help the grin that dimpled his cheeks. “Then,” he told her huskily, “I suppose I shall have to marry you.”

The daft woman didn’t say anything for nearly two minutes.

“Victoria?” he asked gruffly.

She blinked.

“I have just proposed. Are you going to say anything?”

She blinked, again. Then her lips scrunched to the side in an adorably perplexed expression. “Proposed? You practically said it as if I was the one doing the asking!”

“Does it signify? I want to marry you. I am quite certain you are not adverse to the notion, either.”

She wrinkled her nose at him.

“Are you?” he demanded, inexplicably hurt.

Victoria shook her glossy head. “No, I am not.”

“Then why is this a problem?”

“It is not.”

“Victoria, you are trying my patience.”

She grinned at him. It was wide and beautiful and when she smiled at him like that, all he could think of doing was kissing her senseless. “I was just thinking, you impatient man.”

“Thinking? What the devil about?”

Vicky cast him a peeved look. “You’ve just proposed, haven’t you? A girl should have a lot to think about when such a thing occurs, should she not?”

He raised his brow. “You are being deliberately difficult.”

“I am not. You merely cannot see the benefits of weighing up your choices to find the one that best suits your needs.”

“What other choice do you have?” he growled, irked by her cockiness and the teasing light that glinted in her wondrously blue eyes.

“I could always leave here, return back to Hawthorne, and forget that this ever happened.” She stared at him owlishly, her hands clasped behind her back as she rolled on the balls of her feet.

“I could compromise you before you had a chance to do that,” he taunted her, watching her expression carefully. “I’d make sure it was known, too, so you’d have to marry me.”

Her lips twitched slightly at the corners, threatening with a grin. Her mood, he realised, was contagious. “Which brings up the next dilemma that was on my mind,” she said thoughtfully. “I could marry you, as that is what you seem so intent on, and I could stay with you now because something tells me that you would be unable to wait for the wedding night-”

“Would you?”

She shook her head, her lips compressed to stifle a smile. “-so that means I am going to have you as a husband and it will be trying, I’m sure, to have an overbearing, conceited-”

“Victoria-”

“-arrogant-”

He took a menacing step towards her.

She stared up at him laughingly. “-silly-”

“Silly?” He took another step forward, pleased that she held her ground.