‘Well, whoever kissed whom first, whoever is to blame, it hardly matters. Your father caught me, now we are to marry.’
‘We don’t have to.’
He took another sip of his coffee and waited for her to explain.
‘You could refuse.’
‘What? I could tell your father that I refuse to do the honourable thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Apart from that being the appalling behaviour of a cad—’which you obviously think I am‘—your father has already said he will ruin me if I do anything to harm you or take liberties with your good name. And I believe he would define last night’s behaviour as taking liberties.’
Her brow crinkled as if pained. ‘Yes, there’s that. He can be so annoyingly honourable at times. But you could refuse to marry me and tell him if he tried to make you then you are prepared to ruin our entire family, leave us penniless and living in the gutter. That might make him listen to reason.’
‘So you want me to be a cad and a bounder, not to mention an unforgivable scoundrel?’
‘Well, we have to do something.’
‘I suspect even the threat of ruin would not get your father to back down when he thinks he is doing what is best for his daughter.’
This perhaps was the downside of having parents who loved and adored you. Something Jacob had never had to personally contend with.
The furrows in her brow deepened. ‘Well, maybe if we both go to him together, and tell him how much we don’t want to marry?’
‘Which will probably beg the question: so why were we kissing?’
She released a deep sigh and sank down into the nearest chair. ‘Yes, that’s what he said to me last night when I told him it wasn’t your fault and I was the one to kiss you.’
Jacob could ask her the same thing. Why did she kiss him when she had such an objection to him? But he thought it best not to further stir up the hornets’ nest by asking.
Instead, he took a seat across from her. ‘It might not be that bad,’ he said in his most consoling tone.
She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. ‘It isthatbad. You don’t want to marry me and I don’t want to marry you.’
‘We’re certainly not going to be the first couple who have found themselves in this predicament and I suspect we won’t be the last. Perhaps we should just make the best of it.’
She continued staring at him as if he was proving himself to be a greater disappointment with every word he uttered.
‘Nothing much will change,’ he continued. ‘We can both continue living our lives as we do presently.’
That had been the case for many of his friends. They’d married out of a sense of duty, to increase their family’s fortune or to advance their place in Society, and then continued living lives not much different from the ones they’d lived when they’d been single. He and Miss Whitmore could surely do the same.
‘In fact, your life might even improve,’ he continued, warming to the idea. ‘I have a townhouse in London which will be at your disposal whenever you wish.’ He waved his hand to encompass the three-storey home reputed to be one of the finest in Mayfair. ‘I have a vast estate in Northumberland, along with another estate in Yorkshire and a smaller one down in Devon.’
She still did not look convinced.
‘You can convert rooms in any or all of my homes into a studio should you wish.’
This caused her expression to soften. Slightly.
‘As a married woman, you will be able to visit art galleries without a chaperone, and you’ll be able to have those proper art lessons you want so much. No tutor would turn down a request from a duchess. You’ll be able to work with oils and whatnot and paint things other than pretty-pretty flowers.’
The expression softened slightly more. Jacob could hardly believe the absurd situation in which he had found himself, listing the reasons why she should marry him when marriage was the last thing he wanted.
‘But what about you?’ she asked.
‘What about me?’
