Page 6 of Counting on Love

“How much older would matter?”

He tried to joke. “Older than you are.”

“I’m thirty-three.”

He blinked. Good Lord. She was older than Jasper. He had the presence of mind to say, “That isn’t old.” But his voice sounded rattled, even to himself. He added, “You don’t look it.”

She laughed. “That is not as reassuring to hear as I’m sure you meant it to be.”

“You’re beautiful to me,” he insisted.

“Darling, I am a beautiful woman. That is my stock-in-trade.”

“Well then?” He wasn’t understanding. She wasn’t making sense. The room began to feel overly warm.

“But I’m also practical. Beauty fades. I have to face the fact that my value can only wane.”

“Don’t talk like that.” It was distasteful. Sordid, even. “I’m drawn to you for more than your looks.”

She waved off his clumsy attempt to reassure her. Thankfully. If she’d asked him to elaborate, he would have drawn a blank. He didn’t have a facility for pretty compliments and would stumble over what to say. Perhaps she wouldn’t have listened anyway. She seemed hellbent on pressing a point. “So I ask myself: am I to remain with a handsome young gentleman, who pleases me very much and brings me lovely gifts, until he abandons me for—”

“I’m not that shallow,” he interrupted, impatient with her pique. He should have jotted off a few notes. Six months was a long time. Though she was correct; he couldn’t imagine what he would have said.

“—a wife,” she finished, giving him a long look. “Or, do I move on while I can?”

He nearly choked. “A wife? That’s ludicrous.”

Not all men put aside their mistresses when they wed. Probably most didn’t. He might, prude that he was. But it was a silly thing to worry over. It was not even a given that he would take a wife. Jasper was heir to the earldom. He needed to marry and likely soon. But Reginald was twenty-three, not twenty-nine. And then it would be Crispin’s turn. Third sons were not badgered to wed and set up nurseries. Why was Annie bringing up such a concern now?

“I am years from marrying.”

“But that’s worse, don’t you see? Who will clamor for my company in five years? God forbid, in ten?”

So. It occurred to him what she was trying to tell him, and suddenly the tobacco odor made sense. Someone was clamoring for her company now.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Slow as he’d been, Annie evidently hadn’t expected him to catch on quite yet. She tried out a succession of expressions. Confusion. Timidity. Regret. She settled on mutinous.

“Sir Plodgett.”

“Gad.” Plodgett was one of Annie’s disappointed “suitors” a year ago. He hadn’t given up. Rather, he’d waited until Reginald’s back was turned. Bad ton. Poaching a man’s mistress was out of bounds.

“Mr. Taverston, darling—”

“You’ve been with him, haven’t you? Here?” Ridiculously, his jaw clenched, and his voice hitched as if he were angry. More ridiculously, he was angry. Annie would trade him for a baronet who was fifty years old if he was a day. Plodgett? He could hear Jasper’s laughter already.

She bit her lip as if considering what to say, then she nodded. “He is not likely to tire of me.”

“No. More likely you’ll be wheeling him about in a chair, wrapping a shawl over his shoulders, and fetching him possets.”

That was crueler than he meant to be. She eyed him, disappointed, then continued levelly. “I am prepared for that eventuality. He said he would provide me a lifetime pension. If I don’t take this offer, I am unlikely to receive another so favorable.”

“But you were entertaining such offers while living under my…” Protection? What a misleading euphemism. “Roof,” he finished, lowering his gaze. And now he hated himself.

He cared less that she was leaving him than that she was making him look like a fool. Weak. Practically cuckolded.

Yet bubbling up alongside his humiliation was a light feeling of relief. He would have needed to disentangle himself from her eventually. Now he wouldn’t have to.