“This is something of a family heirloom,” he said, indicating the book he held in one hand. “It was handed down from my mother to my sister. Although I am a reader, I have never cared much for this sort of thing. It is some sort of romance, I believe. Is that why you chose it?”
She had not chosen it at all. It just happened to be the book she had had in her hand when she heard him at the door.
“Yes,” she said. “I wanted something to put me to sleep.”
His eyes strayed downward again, pausing at her breasts, whose rather generous fullness she had been hoping in vain the cotton of her nightgown would conceal. She wished she could bite out her tongue. Though there would be no use in doing so now. The words had been spoken.
“You might have been better served,” he said, “by seeking out that footman.”
She drew a deep breath and saw that his eyes were on her breasts again.
“Here.” He held out the volume. “Take it to bed with you, Miss Melfort. Let an imaginary lover put you to sleep. His name is Damon, I believe. You must let me know if he lives up to his name. It suggests a certain—virility, does it not?”
She took the book from him, careful not to touch his hand as she did so. He was sneering at her. Sneering at the idea of reading about love and romance. So typical of men. She had a wide variety of reading tastes, but that was not the point.
“Perhaps I read romance,” she said, looking deliberately into his eyes, knowing that she was being goaded to say what she should not even dream of saying, “not in order to find an imaginary lover to warm my lonely maiden bed, but in order to recall the more lovely aspects of life, those in which love and commitment and relationships give joy and meaning to an existence that is so often wasted in self-gratification and basic unhappiness.”
To her surprise and annoyance he looked amused. He got to his feet and she was aware, as she had been earlier in the day, of his superior height, though he was no longer wearing boots. Even though she was not short, the top of her head barely reached his mouth. She was also very aware of his half-bared chest with its noticeable dusting of dark hair.
He set a hand beneath her chin, though she had not tried to dip her head, and touched the pad of his thumb to her lips for a brief, electrifying moment, during which she almost lost her knees.
“A worthy maidenly speech, Miss Melfort,” he said. "But you really should try self-gratification one of these days. It is a wonderful way of wasting a meaningless existence. You have done well with Beatrice. Despite this morning’s alarming display of enthusiasm, she has pleasing manners and can converse agreeably on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the weather to bonnets to fans. She is, of course, fulfilling the promise of beauty she has given since childhood. In two or three years’ time I should be able to marry her off very creditably indeed. Does she dance?” He had removed his hand, though he continued to stand in front of her, his hands clasped behind him. Laura would have been more comfortable if she could have taken a step or two back, but she stood her ground.
“Very gracefully,” she said, “including the new waltz, which pleases her greatly. But she is not doing well, my lord. She will not be a great prize as any man’s wife unless somehow over the next couple of years she can learn to read and acquire some knowledge of literature and books.”
“Good Lord,” he said, his eyebrows raised arrogantly again, “you are never a bluestocking, are you, Miss Melfort? Do you think all the young bucks who will crowd around Beatrice in a few years’ time will care that much”—he snapped a finger and thumb of one hand—“for the fact that she is a ninnyhammer? She will be prized for her beauty and her dowry and her youth and her ability to breed heirs.”
“And her accomplished conversation,” Laura added.
“That too,” he agreed. “Why do you think men hunt and shoot and fish and frequent their clubs? It is to escape hearing more than necessary about the weather and bonnets and fans.”
“And so they lived happily ever after,” she said tartly. “Would it not be better if a man could converse with his wife? Really converse?”
“Ah, but you see,” he said, “a really stupid man might be shown up by a wife of superior intelligence. It would not do at all. He would be unmanned. Better far if she is a mere ornament. No, don’t try the impossible, Miss Melfort—even if it seems to you to be merely the improbable. Leave Beatrice in happy ignorance. My brother never saw the need of teaching her anything but feminine accomplishments. It is too late now to imagine that she might read and learn to love books and all the knowledge they contain. She has very little aptitude, I believe.”
“I would say it is interest she lacks rather than aptitude,” Laura said. “I live in hope of arousing her interest, my lord.”
“And making of her a sharp-tongued, bold-eyed spinster like yourself?” he asked. “I think not, Miss Melfort. I had you employed as a companion for my niece more than as a governess.”
She was stung. More deeply than she would care to admit.
“I have none of Lady Beatrice’s attributes,” she said. “But that is hardly the point. It is your niece of whom we speak, not me.”
“Is it?” he asked. He sounded bored again, though his eyes regarded her keenly enough. “Which attributes do you lack, Miss Melfort? The large dowry, no doubt. You have the beauty. You are not young—five- or six-and-twenty, at a guess—but doubtless not so old that you cannot breed. You can converse on numerous topics, I do not doubt. Do you dance?”
“Yes,” she said curtly. “Of course I dance.”
“You do lack one other important attribute, though,” he said.
She lifted her chin, hurt again and thoroughly despising herself for being so.
“Straw,” he said.
She frowned her incomprehension. “Straw?”
He took his hands from behind his back and framed her face with them. She froze into immobility. “In here,” he said, tightening his hold of her head. “You have a brain instead. It can be a severe handicap.”
“I would rather be a spinster with a brain,” she said defiantly, “than a married lady with straw.” She was not at all sure that she spoke the truth. Her spinsterhood had weighed heavily on her for years, ever since she had admitted to herself that governesses rarely married because they were caught between the world of servants and that of masters, belonging to neither.
