Promise Me Forever by Lorraine Heath

and she had little doubt that once Samantha had taken a turn with her, Amy would be bounding in to ask questions. Or perhaps not. She seemed not to remember Texas nearly as well as her two older sisters.
    “Do you love him?” Samantha asked.
    She scowled at her sister. “I don’t know him, not really. I see a man who was once a boy whom I liked, but that’s hardly enough to make any sort of judgment regarding my feelings.”
    Samantha popped off the bed. “Let me know when you decide. He has all the qualifications I want in a husband, and if you’re not interested…”
    “What qualifications?”
    “Good looks, charm, money, and a title.”
    “That’s incredibly shallow. The looks will fade with the years, the money will diminish over time—”
    “But the charm and the title will last forever.”
    Lauren stood. “You’re baiting me. Surely you would want to know more than that about a man before you married him.”
    “Think what you will,” Samantha said as she opened the door. “But unlike you, dear sister, I’m not opposed to marrying a lord.”
    Lauren watched her sister exit the room, herparting words echoing around her. Was Samantha really taking an interest in Tom? And if she was, what did Lauren care?
    Unfortunately, she was afraid that she might discover that she cared a great deal.
     
    Lauren’s mother had given Ravenleigh two daughters, Joy and Christine. Joy was nine, Christine six. Fair of complexion, they’d inherited their father’s light blue eyes. They were too young to join the adults for dinner, but they’d come to the library to meet the new earl and had quite effectively charmed Tom. They already seemed like miniature adults. He imagined in a few years they’d be wrapping young men around their little fingers.
    A short while later, after the girls had returned upstairs and when Ravenleigh excused himself in order to determine what was keeping the ladies from joining them, Tom took the opportunity to step out onto the veranda. Twilight was moving on, darkness was easing in, but with the help of the gaslights along the pebbled path, he could still make out the elaborate gardens. The lingering scent of roses wafted around him. He wondered if he’d be expected to learn the names of the various flowers and plants that seemed to fill every garden and park that he visited. These people seemed to love their gardens.
    He shook his head. These people, whether it felt right or not, were his people.
    Removing a cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket, he wondered if he wouldn’t be better off excusing himself from dinner. He wasn’t exactly dressed for a fancy feast, and the one thing he’d learned while enjoying meals with his father’s second wife was that every meal was fancy, and a man was expected to be buttoned up good and proper. Tom wasn’t wearing a waistcoat or an expensively tailored jacket—the tailor he’d hired had promised to make good on the delivery of those items within the next few days—and so Tom knew he didn’t look like any English gentleman he’d met so far, and he was feeling out of his element. Lauren’s mother would probably hold his inappropriate attire against him, and he found himself wondering why her opinion mattered to him so much.
    Maybe because she’d successfully transformed herself into a proper English lady, while he had yet to become the proper English gentleman. Not that his assessment of her transformation was truly fair. His encounters with her years ago had always taken place when she was at her angriest, and, in retrospect, he didn’t blame her for her reactions to his pitiful, inexperienced, and utterly inappropriate attempts at flirting with her oldest daughter.
    Not that he’d behaved any better that afternoon. His reunion with Lauren might have gone more successfully if he’d paved the way with a bit morefinesse and not brought up the debt, a silly reminder of their childhood that he didn’t truly expect her to pay; but it