The Truth Behind Their Practical Marriage. Marguerite Kaye

      ‘I thought so too, but, as Carlo informed me proudly, it is because he is very big for his age.’

      ‘You seemed very taken with them.’

      ‘They were a nice family, obviously close.’

      ‘I’d like a family like that. I mean I’d like what that woman had—to be the centre of someone’s world, to nurture a child—no, a host of children—and watch them grow.’ Aidan looked as startled by the admission as she was herself. ‘I don’t know why I blurted that out. Ignore me.’

      ‘It’s a natural enough thing to want. I want it myself,’ he said, with an odd little smile. ‘But we can’t always have what we want, can we? Cashel Duairc is crying out for a gaggle of children to fill it with laughter, turn it into a home, not a draughty castle. But it’s not going to happen in my lifetime.’

      ‘Why on earth not?’ Estelle asked, both touched and taken aback by this confession.

      ‘I told you, I’m not in the market for a wife.’

      ‘Never? I thought you meant at the moment.’

      ‘I meant never.’

      His tone was clipped, his expression forbidding. Mortified, Estelle could think of only one reason for this sudden change in his mood. ‘You need not worry that I have designs on you.’

      His hand found hers under the table. ‘I don’t. Did I mention,’ he continued after a brief silence, ‘that I first came to university here when I was eighteen? When my father died, I was obliged to return home and therefore left before completing my degree.’

      ‘So you came back to pick up the reins of your misspent youth when you turned thirty?’

      He smiled weakly. ‘I’m sorry to disillusion you, but I never had a misspent youth. I was a very serious young man back then, and inheriting Cashel Duairc so unexpectedly made me even more so.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘To my father? He was one of the main investors in the project to build the Royal Canal, and I suspect an irritating distraction to the men charged with actually constructing the thing, for he was a bit of an amateur engineer. It was when he was inspecting one of the half-built bridges that he died—the scaffolding gave way.’

      ‘Oh, Aidan, how awful, I’m so sorry.’

      ‘He wasn’t the only casualty, not by a long shot. Building canals—building anything—is a dangerous business. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is what it amounts to. It’s a pity that he never got to see it completed. They invited me to the opening—one of my first official duties, after I inherited.’

      ‘That must have been very difficult for you.’

      ‘I was too busy to think, most of the time.’

      ‘And so your studies were put on hold.’

      ‘Abandoned for twelve years, would be more accurate.’ Aidan picked up his empty coffee cup, frowned down at the cold grounds and signalled for another. ‘As it turns out, the world hasn’t been deprived of a mathematical genius after all. But my time here hasn’t been wasted. I reckon I’ll take some inspiration from my father and put my studies to more practical use in the form of engineering. There’s no shortage of projects to keep me occupied.’

      Estelle puzzled over this insight into his thinking while they waited for his coffee to be served. ‘Occupied to the extent that there would be no room for a wife and family?’ she asked when they were once again alone.

      He hesitated, drinking his coffee in one gulp in the Italian manner. ‘The structures I build will be my legacy.’

      Was that an answer? She still couldn’t understand why he was so set against marriage, but his words had struck a chord none the less. Aidan could not be a mathematician, but being an engineer was a practical alternative use of his talents. ‘To follow your logic, if my continued single status denies me the opportunity of having a family of my own,’ Estelle said, ‘then perhaps I should consider helping other families raise their children.’

      ‘Surely you don’t imagine yourself as a governess?’