Page 62 of A Single Obsession

He wished he could wipe away the concern clouding her features. “What is it?”

Eliza gave him a wistful smile. “I was thinking how unbearable it would be if Frances had a boy and then another…and Georgiana had…none.”

Her words trailed off, spoken so softly that Beau only just caught the last word.

His chest tightened, and he gazed into the distance, not knowing how to respond. To talk about babies made him feel uncomfortable. He knew he’d have to face up to having children someday, but he hoped that day was a long way off.

The trouble was, he didn’t know how to be a parent—and the thought terrified him.

He’d not known his own father, and Harting was invariably distant. The dominant figure in his life had always been his mother—and he didn’t want to be like her.

At length, he turned back to Eliza and met her eyes, which were full of tenderness and something more he couldn’t identify that seemed to pull him in. Perhaps having children with this woman was not such a dreadful prospect…

Beau shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. What was he thinking? It was his mother’s idea that he should get married, not his. It was his duty to wed and produce an heir at some point, but he was not ready to take a bride yet—or was he? Would he ever find another woman who suited him as well?

He doubted it. Perhaps he should stop trying to escape marriage and wed Eliza.

The notion was not as dreadful as he’d imagined. Quite the opposite. Warmth flooded his being as he allowed the idea to settle.

Until a much less pleasant thought came to him. If he proposed to Eliza now, his mother would have dictated his future—and he would not marry at her command if he could avoid it.

What was the hurry anyway? If he won the bet and gained his independence, he would be free to make his own choice—and he would choose Eliza.

He must not give in now, or his mother would win.

“Frances will probably have a hideous baby girl who looks just like her,” he said, trying to break the tension with a joke, “and who could be jealous of that?”

Eliza gave a tight smile. “No one.”

Beau saw the tears glistening in her eyes and knew he’d said the wrong thing, but it was too late to take his words back.

The moment had passed, and it was just as well. He wasn’t used to thinking so deeply about such things and was shocked to find how much he cared. He was concerned Eliza was upset—and it grieved him.

Beau tried to think of something that would bring a smile to her face again.

“Do you know if the badger set we watched as boys is still there?” he said, calling back to Jem, who had drawn up some distance away. “I was telling Eliza about it the other day and wondered.”

His groom shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can find out. I’ll ask my pa.”

Beau acknowledged his words with a nod and turned back to Eliza, but she didn’t look up.

He urged Jet forward, eager to be on the move again, as if he could ride away from the heaviness weighing on him because he’d let her down.

It was only to be expected. He always disappointed his mother. He was bound to disappoint Eliza, too.

It exacerbated his feelings of inadequacy when Finch drew alongside her and talked to her in an easy manner. It galled him to think of her groom consoling her where he had failed.

With a flick of his whip, he chivvied his horse into a canter and left them to it.

Beau was some distance ahead of them when he met the landau coming the other way. His mother gave him a disapproving stare, but then, what was new about that?

“Where is Elizabeth, Beaumont? You were supposed to be taking care of her.”

A fresh wave of guilt coursed over him. “She’s not far behind.”

Miss Whitlow grinned like a Cheshire cat, revelling in the fact he had arrived alone.

“That was not very gentlemanlike of you to desert her, but I suppose a Corinthian like yourself could not resist the lure of a good gallop,” she said, pouting her lips in a way some men might have found attractive.