He grinned. “Exactly. You shall be a vision in yellow with daffodils in your hair and upon your gown. You shall glow in an otherwise dark room and everyone will remark upon it.”
“Especially if I trip and land on my nose.”
“You must trust me,” he said softly. “I have everything under control.”
That was a mistake. At his words, she stopped walking, withdrew her arm from his, and turned such that she faced him eye to eye. “Why would I do that?” she asked.
“Because I am not an idiot when it comes to these ventures. I have been searching for a long time for a venture that Isabelle cannot touch. I will not let this chance pass by because of something stupid. Betting on a flower crop is risky enough. Everything else must be planned meticulously.”
“And you have done that? In two days’ time?”
He nodded.
“Without even talking to me? Am I to be your partner in this? We have not discussed anything and yet you ask me to trust you. I do not know what you are thinking, and you cannot know that I have done anything I promised.”
He rubbed his chin, unaccountably annoyed. “Of course, you have done what you promised. You are working on a safe means of transport, as we discussed at the beginning.”
“But you cannot know I have tested the ideas. That I have thought through temperature and expense, the wetness of the soil or any of a thousand different things.”
He folded his arms. “Of course, I can. You are not a woman to be casual about her plants.”
“I’m not a woman who is casual about anything,” she snapped. “And you have been entirely too quick with your plans without discussing a word with me.”
She was right. Hadn’t he just told himself that she was not a woman to be rushed? And yet the whole thing annoyed him. He did not know a single woman who truly wanted to be involved in details. They always left the management to him because the particulars bored them. In truth, all they really wanted was his attention, and he did not have time to give it!
“I cannot wait to explain everything to you,” he said, his voice tight. “There is too little time and too much to be done. But I promise you, once the idea is launched, I shall be at your disposal.”
She stared at him a long moment, her mouth tightening into a very straight line. In the end, she blew out her breath. “I see we will not suit,” she finally said. “I wish you luck in your endeavor, my lord. I hope it brings you everything you want.”
It happened so very suddenly that he was momentarily thrown. When she turned away from the park to walk back toward her home, he grew downright panicked. He needed her! She could not possibly think to end this simply because he had not gone through every little thing ahead of time.
He scrambled to catch up to her, his longer legs serving him well in this. “Lady Gwen, please. We came out here to discuss things in private. We should do that.”
She didn’t slow her steps, but she did look him in the eye. “Why? You are not going to share your decisions with me, and I am not going to be comfortable blindly following your dictates.”
He hadn’t been dictating to her… much. “You have never before told me you wished to know the details. You appeared surprised every time I said I would call on you.”
She shrugged. “I am always surprised when someone wishes to call on me. Most people avoid it.”
He held out his hand in front of her. With any other woman, he would have pulled her to a stop, but with Lady Gwen, he knew better now. He held out his hand before her and she stopped rather than connect with his arm. It was rather lowering to realize how much she didn’t want to touch him when he enjoyed every time they had brushed skin to skin.
“Lady Gwen, you accuse me of making precipitous decisions without discussing things with you. Are you not doing the exact same thing now?”
“You are aware, are you not, when your clothing pinches? When your cravat is too tight?”
Whatever was she talking about? “Of course.”
“Well, you, my lord, pinch. And I do not like it. That doesn’t require discussion, it requires removal.”
“Or you could just ask me to relax my grip.”
She stared at him, her lips softening then compressing again and again. She appeared as someone who wished to speak but was constantly choking off her words. And in her silence, he confessed something he just now understood.
“I believe we both have been disappointed often by people who do not do as they promise. Who will not listen to reason and who dismiss us as inconsequential.”
“You are a man,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “If you are dismissed, you can find a way to accomplish it on your own. All I can do is walk away.”
His brows rose. “You overestimate the power of my gender.” Then when she opened her mouth to argue, he raised his hands in surrender. “But I grant that I have resources you do not. Which is why we need to work together.”