“Why don’t you want to marry me?” He tried to hide how desperate he was to know the answer. He may not have desired matrimony, but a woman not wanting him … well, it was odd, to say the least.
“It isn’t obvious?”
“Not to me, although I suppose I don’t possess the brilliant mind of Lady Harriet Bancroft,” he drawled, stepping closer to her. Herbreath picked up even more.Thrilling. He hoped she wasn’t the type to swoon; she didn’t seem it.
“We don’t suit, my lord,” Harriet choked out, taking a step backward to account for his advance.
“Why is that?”
“To begin with, you’re, well … you’re …”
“I’m?” he asked, lips quirked into a smile as he continued to advance toward her. She was, as most women were, positively heaven to bedevil.
“Yes! Precisely!” she exclaimed, inching backward farther until she knocked into the table.
“I’m what, Lady Harriet? What is it about me that is so far beneath you?” Her hand reached out to steady herself, clinging to the table’s edge.
“Beneath me?” She laughed harshly, and her grip relaxed. Alexander noticed because he’d been staring at her long, delicate fingers. Fingers! What on earth was he doing watching a woman’s fingers? He instructed his eyes to go back to a normal position: her bosom. There was plenty for them to see there, and less trouble for them to get into than on a lady’s hands. Under no circumstances were they to travel up toward her lips and, God forbid, her gray eyes. Breasts were safe.
When he turned his attention back to Harriet, he found she was in the middle of another one of her long speeches.
“—sure I am notyourfirst choice. I’m not even your first choice among my sisters! You have money and property and probably belong to a club and own two carriages and a phaeton and employa chef with regularity if not permanence and know fourteen ways to tie a cravat—”
“My valet does that for me, I must admit.”
“You’re titled and wealthy and can have any woman you choose. If the rumors are true, youdohave all the women you choose. I do not intend to burden you with marriage. I vow I did not have any designs on entrapment when I entered the library.Pleasebelieve me. I wouldn’t marry you unless it were very dire indeed.” He reached around her, bringing them within inches of one another, a distance which made Harriet’s breath audibly hitch.
“Yes, you keep saying that,” he said, grabbing the bottle of gin behind her.
“It’s simply true. I have no more interest in this marriage than you do. But we both require it.”
“I assure you I do not.” He removed the bottle and put a small, safe distance between them.
“I hardly think your reputation can withstand absconding with a daughter of a peer—and we both know that’s how this will be written up—especially since you’re already known to be a …” She cut herself off and bit her lip.
Ahh.
There it was. Because he was a bastard. For some in society it was quite the knock against his character. Although really, he’d had nothing to do with the whole ordeal—that had been his parents’ doing.
He hadn’t expected her to care about it for some reason. He took a drink straight out of the bottle.
It now seemed rather foolish that he had ever worried a lady might try to trap him for his money or his title, when this woman, this bluestocking with no dowry and a scandalous family, had made it clear that she was marrying him only out of desperation.
Perhaps all the ladies of thetonhad always felt that way. Perhaps the courtesans and mistresses and actresses—and yes, the bored wives before he realized that was too messy—were as good as he could get. He had believed he’d been holding thetonat arm’s length, avoiding a match, avoiding the climbers and the desperate mamas. Maybe they’d been avoiding him. The thought stung for about four seconds before he discarded it.
She was correct about one thing: He couldn’t afford scandal if he wanted Lord Holden to continue to do business with him. Which he did.
“Ah yes, I suppose that does rather contaminate a person, doesn’t it?” he sneered, feeling rather venomous. Any fun he’d been having vexing her evaporated. His mind sharpened in defensive fury, and he took another drink of the warm, and not very good, gin.
“I don’t know why you’re upset withmeabout it! I do not dictate societal morals. In fact, I fancy it’s been rathernobleof you to keep all the widows of thetonsuch nice company over the years! And think of the opera singers! They’d be bored out of their minds if it weren’t for you!”
Oh.
She had meant a rake, not a bastard. Her words from earlier came back to him:I find you inconvenient, arrogant, and morallybankrupt. He let out a half laugh and scrubbed a hand down his face, his beard already growing in from a day and a half without a shave.
She quieted at the sound of his laughter, her ire deflating with his. He thought for a moment. Her argument was not unfounded. A compromising position at a ballroom might be overlooked eventually. Or chalked up to the type of roguish behavior befitting a bastard second son. But leaving the city with the daughter of an earl? No, the minx had done well forcing his hand. It had been years since someone managed him so deftly, and he felt something akin to admiration.
He reached around her casually for the glasses. His arm brushed against hers, their chests inches apart. When he stood back, her eyes were wide, and her breathing unsteady. He was delighted that she seemed at least a little affected by his touch. Although he reminded himself that it might simply be fear, rather than sensual excitement. He ignored that his breathing matched her own.
