The Reluctant Suitor by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

privilege, she had seemed little affected by her noble status. Even so, she had given him absolutely no reason to hope that her feelings for him would eventually deepen into something more satisfying in spite of the fact that he had indicated as much to his father, who had then seen some advantage in investing a tidy sum in gentlemanly attire for him. The clothing that had once sufficed for a tutor had seemed paltry indeed among landed gentry and had proven a painful embarrassment to him on more than one occasion. Yet even now Roger feared such extravagance would come to naught and he’d rue the day he ever deceived his parent, for no matter how diligently he sought to bestir some deeper affection within the heart of the tall, slender, stirringly beautiful
    brunette, she seemed content to keep him at arm’s length, offering him nothing more than a congenial graciousness, and that strictly on her terms.
    He stretched forth a thin hand in invitation, exercising caution lest he touch her and she pull away. “
    Should we not be going now, my lady?”
    Colton shifted his gaze to Adriana to determine her response to the apprentice’s impertinence to urge her to leave. He hardly expected his scrutiny to be challenged, and yet, beneath his close attention, she lifted her delicately refined chin with stately aloofness, as if daring him to question her association with a commoner.
    Colton felt his hackles rise, a reaction almost as unsettling as the surgeons telling him he’d likely lose his leg. Never before had he considered himself disdainful of common men. Almost half his lifetime, he had trudged in their footsteps through rain-soaked muck, raced ahead of them amid the thunderous din of exploding cannons, fought hand to hand beside them against the fury of the enemy, and many times had fallen asleep within a handbreadth of the very ones who had called him “milord Colonel.” He didn’t know precisely what there was about Roger Elston that nettled his mood and temper. Having only this hour met the fellow, he was incapable of laying a finger to the exact cause. It could hardly have been spawned by his own jealousy. Considering his lengthy absence, the girl was merely an acquaintance from his past, definitely exquisite beyond a mortal man’s comprehension, but one who over the years had become estranged to him. Whatever the cause of his vexation, he accepted it as fact that he disliked the apprentice intensely.
    The lady’s unspoken challenge did much to rally Roger’s hopes. It was rare indeed that she had encouraged him, and he felt a surge of boldness in his desire to establish her as his own fiancée, yet when he actually tried to take her hand, he felt an icy shiver of rejection as she retreated a step and then, as if blind, looked through him rather than at him. The lady definitely had a way of conveying her annoyance, and he could only construe by her frosty detachment that she hadn’t appreciated his attempt to demonstrate some right to her. Nor apparently had she deemed herself answerable to the marquess for her conduct or her association with a miller’s apprentice.
    Eager to solidify her lifelong companion as a member of the Wyndham family any way she could, Samantha seized upon the tenuous situation to make her brother aware that Adriana was not only desired by scores of aristocrats but also by ordinary men who struggled against the futility of their aspirations. As much as her friend would’ve dismissed such a suggestion, Samantha had long perceived that Roger was desperate to have her any way he could.
    “I fear once again I’ve failed to introduce you to another one of our guests, Colton. Mr. Roger Elston, to be precise.” She took a moment to take care of that formality, and then went on to explain, “Mr. Elston has been acquainted with Adriana for almost a year now. He accompanies us fairly frequently on our rides about the countryside. Under Adriana’s tutorship, he has become an accomplished