worst. Georgina Meredith Hanover was definitely not the quiet intellectual type he preferred, but she had the bold effrontery he knew how to deal with. He felt right at home with the little imp.
"I don't see what's so funny. Do you think my getting married is funny? Or that my being a proper matron is a laughing matter?"
Daniel shook his head and recovered himself, giving her a look of amusement as he spoke. "I hope you're marrying someone with a sense of humor. He's going to need it. Does he know you flirt with strange men?"
She pursed her lips and glared at him, but the laughter behind her eyes didn't die entirely. Instead, the effect was almost winsome, as if a shadow had passed between them, revealing something she hadn't meant to be seen. She spread the fan and turned away.
"He has absolutely no sense of humor at all, and he would probably put me in chains if he knew I flirted. Why do you think I've spent the last two years in Europe? I've been trying to get all this childish behavior out of my system so I can become a proper wife."
Everything she had said up until now had been silly and flirtatious and without a grain of intelligence. Daniel wasn't quite ready for the shift to truth. Assuming this was just another game, he replied in kind. "I can see you've succeeded magnificently. You'll no doubt be staidly pouring tea from a silver pot before the week is out."
She affected a bright smile. "Well, that would be fine, if I didn't have to pour it into cups. I can think of a couple of laps that could use heating up."
That was not only impolite, it smacked of the desperate. Daniel turned her a wary look to be certain she wasn't one of these hysterical females who would soon deteriorate into tears. She was busily removing a sketchpad from her traveling bag. Damn, but she could be Evie's second cousin.
"I've decided to take up painting. Do you know anything about art, Mr. Martin?"
Personally, he knew little or nothing about it, but he had seen plenty of it in his lifetime. He took her sketchpad and flipped through the pages. The drawings were good reproductions of various architectural monuments she had visited, but they were nothing like Evie's dramatic portraits. Daniel shrugged.
"I don't know a whole lot," he admitted. "These seem to be mighty fine pictures, though. I think I've seen one like this." He pointed to the cathedral tower of Notre Dame.
"Of course, everyone's seen it." She snapped the pad closed and returned it to her bag. "That's the whole problem. I have no imagination. I don't suppose marriage stimulates the imagination."
Finally divining the source of the problem, Daniel offered what he thought was practical advice. "Well, now, if you're not interested in getting married just yet, you don't have to say yes. Just tell the man you've changed your mind."
"You try telling Peter anything. Or my father. They've made up their minds, and no amount of talking is going to change them. After all, I'm just a silly woman who doesn't know what she wants. And they're right. I haven't the foggiest notion of what I want. So I guess I'll get married."
There wasn't much Daniel could say to that. The only experience he'd had with marriage was Evie and Tyler's, and that marriage certainly hadn't started out in the most conventional manner. He'd been foolish enough to contemplate it once himself, but apparently the reasons he'd thought were good enough for marriage weren't good enough for the object of his intentions. So he scarcely qualified as an expert.
"You must have some feelings for the man or you wouldn't have agreed in the first place."
Georgina shrugged. "I don't remember ever actually agreeing. To be perfectly factual, I don't remember ever being asked. When I came back from finishing school, they started talking about setting a date. That's when I panicked and made them give me a few years of travel. I thought maybe absence would make my heart grow fonder or some such bosh. But all I can remember about Peter is that he was the best-looking man at my come-out. I really don't think that's a basis for marriage."
There was a small frown behind her eyes as she said this, but before Daniel could think of an adequate reply, she was laughing again and tapping him with her fan. "Now tell me you'll come to my