Jonathan was alarmed, for he’d not ever seen her in such a state. He’d never beheld her divested of her ladylike graces, not even during the ordeal of last Christmas. He felt it must indicate extreme distress or her increasing comfort in his presence—or both—and could only hope it was just the latter.
Fearing to startle her, he moved slowly and silently to a corner of the room. There he settled down to wait, leaning against the wall until she was ready to talk.
He watched and waited.
She stared at the mosaic floor.
At last he heard a heavy sigh.
“He put a blanket over us both,” she said all in a rush, immediately checking herself with a weak laugh. “I know, I know, it’s hardly a great liberty. Nothing to set the scandal sheets aflame. ‘Unmarried couple share blanket on innocent sleigh ride’—the horror!” Her troubled expression belied her playful tone. “In truth, I’ve no idea whether I had any right to feel bothered. We were courting, after all. I told myself to stop being silly and just ignore it.”
Had Jonathan felt it were wise to interject, he might have countered that it was a great liberty and she had every right to feel bothered by such indecorum. In concert with his own judgment, the fact that Miss Harris, of all people, had found it noteworthy proved the point.
But he thought it better to remain silent. He’d promised not to respond unless asked, after all.
“As it turned out, though, I couldn’t ignore it,” she continued quietly. “So I thought to just nudge the blanket aside inch by inch, very discreetly, and free myself without drawing notice.”
She shook her head in apparent disbelief—though whether at herself or that bounder Milstead, he didn’t know.
“Even so,” she went on, “he noticed. He asked me what I was doing and why, and when I explained, at first he seemed to take it well. He said he set great store by my distress—and was mortified to have given offense, and made reference to profuse apologies, unendurable shame, and the like…but the longer he rattled on, the more he seemed to be speaking of offenses received rather than bestowed.”
Once more Jonathan wanted to interject, but he held himself back.
She blew out a breath, still staring at the floor. “By way of a small excuse for his mistake, he said he’d had no idea that I was so very proper, for I’d shown no indication I was that sort of lady. Of course, now armed with the knowledge, he would happily make allowances…”
Jonathan folded his arms.
“…although he had to say, purely for the sake of candor, that my pretense of virtue had left him feeling slightly ill-used. For being no stranger to women’s tricks, and having long prided himself on resisting all our little stratagems, was he now to turn round and cast himself into my trap? In fact, given this new window into my character, he felt it might be prudent to reassess our suitability for one another…”
Jonathan ground his teeth.
“…yet after a little reflection, he believed he knew his own mind, and despite his very natural reservations—and in view of my compelling attractions—in short, I’d left him no choice but to circumvent my modesty by proposing on the spot.”
She paused, probably to catch her breath.
What was your answer? Jonathan yelled in his head.
It took everything he had to clench his jaw shut till she went on.
She cleared her throat. “Forgive me, in reciting these words I’ve realized the man who uttered them is a pompous worm. I must have noticed it when he said them—indeed, thinking back now, I remember feeling nettled—but I suppose I was only half-listening to his speech, since during the whole of it he was…”
She trailed off, rubbing her furrowed brow.
He was…what? On the sharpest of tenterhooks, his mouth dry and his jaw aching, Jonathan wondered what could possibly be coming next.
Having already rattled her with his forward behavior, disparaged her character with insinuations, and solicited her hand in perhaps the most insulting terms imaginable, to what further heights of boorishness could Milstead have aspired?
“Forgive me,” she repeated haltingly, “I’m finding this difficult to explain. For I was about to relate my outrage that during the whole of Lord Milstead’s speech, in defiance of his supposed apologies, he still had me trapped under the blanket. But as it happens…that is false. For in fact he never touched me, excepting the briefest of contact to stay my hand when he first realized I was shifting it. After that, I could have removed it at any time.”
At last she looked up. And over at him.
His breath caught.
Determined to be supportive—as a friend—he somehow managed to lock his gaze on hers with a steadiness he didn’t feel.
“But I left the blanket there,” she mused, looking up to the thatched ceiling. Her tone had turned speculative, as though she might be talking to herself. “Though I itched to have the dratted thing off me, though I felt excruciatingly aware of and all but tortured by it, I let it be. Why did I do that? And why did I let him rattle on and on, instead of interrupting? And why didn’t I refuse his offer?”
This was too much for even Jonathan’s self-command, and a breathless query forced its way out. “You are engaged?”
