‘I see, but your relationship with your father is notentirelyhonest either.’
She stopped walking and stared up at him. ‘How can you possibly say that? I never lie to Father.’
‘But you did not tell him the entire truth regarding our arrangement.’
‘Hmm, well, no, I felt it best, given the reason why you need this engagement, to keep some of the, well, sordid details back from my father.’
‘Yes, a good idea, but it is not what I meant. You can’t deny that you told him that we plan to marry, which we don’t, and never have.’
‘If you’d listened more closely to what I said, you would have heard me make it clear this was an arranged engagement. That’s all I ever said.’
‘But an eventual marriage was certainly implied.’
‘I thought it prudent to leave that somewhat vague. What inference my father took from my words is up to him. I never said I intended to marry you.’
He laughed loudly, drawing the attention of several passing strollers. ‘With a mind as sharp as yours and your gift for twisting words to your own advantage, I do believe you should be a politician or a lawyer.’
Margaret tensed, remembering what the Earl of Northwood had said, that a quick wit and knowing one’s own mind were admirable qualities in a politician, but not in a wife.
‘Except, like illustrators forPunch, they are two more occupations that do not welcome women,’ she said with more bitterness than she intended.
‘Well, that should certainly change.’
‘On that, we are in complete agreement.’
They continued walking in silence, and Margaret admonished herself for once again becoming upset by that overheard conversation between the Duke and the Earl and wished she could stop going over and over it in her head. It mattered not that he had said she meant nothing to him. He meant nothing to her either. And that was as it should be.
And yet she had revealed more about herself to this man who meant nothing to her than she had intended. Was it because she wanted him to know that once she had been like those debutantes the Earl of Northwood saw as ideal wife material? Was that why she had told him about her horrid first Season? So he would see she had not always been quite so disillusioned? That she had once optimistically hoped that love, marriage and happiness would come her way?
Was she trying to convince him that she had not always been a wallflower but had first retreated to that corner after her unpleasant experience because it felt safe? Then, as she’d become increasingly invisible to the courting men, or in some cases the topic of cruel ridicule, she’d become more guarded, putting that reputed quick wit and sharp tongue to effective use against those offensive dullards, all the while having to deal with the increasingly desperate behaviour of her mother.
They were among the reasons why she was twenty-four and unmarried, but she could only wonder why he had not taken a wife. As the Earl had said, many a debutante would be happy to let him live however he chose in exchange for becoming a duchess. And dukes were expected to marry and to sire a child or two, as the Earl had so crudely put it. There was only one way to find out.
‘Tell me, why have you not married? Aren’t dukes expected to do so? Didn’t your parents insist you marry, have children and carry on the family line?’
‘My parents are both dead, so what they expect of me is irrelevant as they’re in no position to make demands,’ he said with a laugh that did not sound entirely amused.
‘Yes, I did know that both your parents had died and I should not have mentioned them. I’m sorry and did not mean to be flippant,’ she said quietly.
‘Don’t be sorry. I’m better off without them.’
She looked up at him, shocked at his statement and certain it could not be so.
‘Did you ever meet the late Duke of Rosedale?’ he said, registering her expression.
She shook her head.
‘Lucky you. The man was a brute, and that was when he was in a good mood.’ Once again, he said this with a laugh that appeared to cover a wealth of pain.
‘That must have been very hard for you when you were a child,’ she said quietly.
‘Not really. I hardly saw the old monster. He packed me off to boarding school when I was seven and when I came home during the holidays I stayed out of his way as best I could.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She died when I was little more than a baby, so I don’t really remember her.’
‘That’s sad, to lose a mother so young.’
