"Why?" she echoed.
"Why are you here at all? Why are you in London for the Season?"
"Why am I here?" She was starting to sound like a parrot.
"Yes," he said. "I assume it's to find a husband, but is this what you want? Is this how you wish to go about it?"
She gaped up at him. Was he serious? Did anyone wish to be in such a pitiable state that a formidable dowager duchess was forced to pay a man to court her?
Was he truly so oblivious or did he just want to hear her say it aloud?
She was desperate. Unwanted. And he, of all people, ought to know just how desperate she was.
She studied his expectant look. She'd thought him irritatingly charming, and perhaps obnoxiously confident. But she had not pegged him as cruel.
But his eyes were filled with curiosity, not mockery. And Clarissa forced herself to piece together an appropriate answer. "I am here because I have been considering my options, my lord. And those options are, at present…limited."
He seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She tried to keep her mouth shut, she really did.
But then she heard herself saying, "Obviously it's not how I'd wish to go about it, but my parents want me to find a match— I mean, I have to find a match, don't I? It's to be expected, and truthfully, I haven't made a good start of it, and the duchess is offering to help, and I— That is…" She drew in a deep breath, noting with a sharp pang of regret that his lips were twitching with the urge to laugh. She just barely held back a sigh as she finished, "It's practical."
"Practical," he repeated, as if tasting the word. "Is that what you want? Something practical?"
Anger flared again at his easy words. "What I want is irrelevant."
"It's the only thing that's relevant." He said it simply. And for the first time since she'd met him, he wasn't smiling. "What do you want, Lady Clarissa?"
For once, Clarissa didn't have to force herself to be quiet. She was shocked into silence. Her eyes felt impossibly wide as she stared up at him.
What do you want?
Such a simple question, but she couldn't remember ever hearing it before. Not aimed at her, at least.
Clarissa had been told what to want by her parents, and what to hope for by Edmund, and what to settle for by the ton. But to be asked what she wanted sent her mind into a spiral.
"I want—" She stopped. Then she tried again. "I want to have a choice. That's what I want. I want to choose. My parents chose the marquess. Edmund chose a vicar's wife. Even this arrangement, it's the duchess choosing, isn't it? Someone else deciding what's best for me, and I'm just meant to go along with it because I clearly can't be trusted to—" She was talking too fast. "I want options. That's what I want. I want to choose. For myself. A husband, a home, a family, yes. I want all that. But I want it to be my choice. Not my parents' and not because I'm desperate and not because some man took pity on me."
She ran out of breath. The silence that followed seemed to mock her torrent of words, and it made her wince.
She'd talked too much, too fast, too honestly, and now this man was going to look at her the way Edmund looked at her, with that patient, tolerant smile that said there she goes again.
Kit was quiet for a moment. "That's a much better answer than 'practical.'"
She blinked.
"In that case, I'm honored to be of assistance," he said.
She blinked again. Goodness. She was very rarely shocked into silence, but now it had happened twice in one conversation. But then…
I'm honored to be of assistance. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. How did he manage to say such a thing with such sincerity? She couldn't detect even a hint of greed or hidden agendas.
But she knew they were there. She'd heard the way he'd bartered. She knew he had an agenda of his own. But the fact that he hid it so well right now…
Well, it was unnerving. And so she started to back away, wariness stealing over her.
"What is it?" He frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
She stopped. "Like what?"
