AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You have forgotten the baker and the candlestick maker,’ Robert remarked drily.
‘No, the baker is happily mar—’ She stopped and her cheeks turned a deep rose before she gave a small curtsy. ‘I suppose you think the play on the rhyme amusing. And I tumbled straight into it.’
‘I rest my case. Matchmaking consumes you and, if you allow it, it will ruin you.’
She flicked her tongue over her mouth, turning her lips a cherry-ripe red. ‘Define matchmaking.’
‘Aiding, assisting or otherwise seeking the advancement of marriage,’ he said without hesitation.
‘I have other passions. It is merely a pleasant pastime, helping others out. They have a right to their chance of happiness. After all, I had mine, even though it was cut short.’ Lady Thorndike examined a bit of lace on her glove, hiding her face as she always did when she spoke about her late husband. ‘And if anyone objected, I’ve never insisted. You, for example, have made it perfectly clear that you wish to choose your own partner.’
‘If you ever tried to manipulate my private life, Lady Thorndike, it would be the end of our friendship.’
‘I know the limits.’
She stared at him defiantly, her pointed chin raised in the air and her glossy black hair quivering with indignation. Robert returned her gaze with a steady one of his own. Clearly she had chosen to forget the first ball he attended in the neighbourhood, when she had attempted to pair him off with the new Mrs Crozier.
‘All I can say is the late Sir Edmund Thorndike must have been a paragon of virtue and forbearance.’ He held up his hand, stopping her outraged squeak. Someone had to save her and everyone else from her capricious nature. One day her little schemes would ruin some innocent. ‘But we are not speaking about the past, Lady Thorndike, but the present. You are singularly unable to resist meddling in the matrimonial affairs of others. It is becoming worse by the day.’
‘I can stop any time I want,’ Henrietta replied, her face taking on a mutinous expression as she crossed her arms over her full bosom, highlighting rather than detracting from her curves.
‘Prove it.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting that the new Mrs Crozier would be better off if she remained a spinster, trimming hats and living on tea and snippets of hot buttered toast?’ Two bright spots appeared on Lady Thorndike’s cheeks and her eyes blazed sapphire. ‘She has a bright future with a husband who loves her and a more-than-respectable income.’
Robert made an irritated noise. The new Mrs Crozier’s figure proclaimed that she lived on far more than snippets of toast. ‘Anyone with a half a brain could have seen the way the wind blew when Crozier took to visiting Miss Brown on the pretext of picking up his great-aunt’s hats. You may have succeeded this time, but the next…You run the risk of destroying some innocent’s future.’
‘What are you suggesting, Mr Montemorcy?’ Her carefully arranged curls shook with anger. ‘I enjoy helping people. People need me. And this wedding breakfast will not run itself.’
At last. She’d walked straight into his trap—the reason he’d come to the wedding breakfast and engaged her in a battle of wills to begin with. ‘I am suggesting a wager to demonstrate that you are addicted to arranging others’ love lives and you have no sense of discipline in these matters.’ He watched her bridle at the words. He wondered if she knew how desirable she appeared when she was angry. Desirable but very much off limits, and Robert never mixed pleasures of the flesh with his social duty. It caused complications. ‘Unless you wish to admit defeat here and now?’
Her even white teeth worried her bottom lip. ‘You make it sound like I have no self-control.’
‘In recent months, you have lost whatever self-control you had in this matter.’ Robert leant forwards, wondering how far he dared push her. But Lady Thorndike had to agree to the wager. Without it, his entire scheme for protecting his ward would fall at the first hurdle.
‘What time frame do you suggest?’ She smoothed the deep mauve of her gown and Robert knew he had won. She’d been unable to resist the temptation and had taken the bait. ‘A wager is no good if it goes on indefinitely.’
‘Until Lady Winship’s ball in a month’s time,’ he replied.
‘A month? I don’t know whether to be flattered or amused that you do not think I can last a month. There are many other things in my life—visiting the sick, gardening and even doing needlework if I must.’
‘A month will be enough to prove my point.’
‘I will be delighted to prove you wrong.’ Henrietta tapped her fan against his arm. ‘And when I do, you will have to allow me to host a picnic at the excavations. And for added sweetness, the merest of trifles—you will dance a polka with me at the ball.’
