Page 90 of Faceless

“Did you not? You ought to hear what happens to your own breathing when you are taking your pleasure. I assure you, it is an astounding thing, and I shall never grow tired of being guided by it.”

She turned her hand under his and twined their fingers together. She had no use for the wine she had poured just now; the warmth in her had risen from somewhere the glass did not reach.

“And the second question?”

His fingers squeezed hers faintly, as if in gratitude that she had permitted him to move from the more awkward one. “There was a woman, some years ago. I was very young. It was not serious in the way you mean. Rather, I was serious about it. She was not. I got over it.”

“How long did it take?”

“Longer than it should have. And then… There was you. And I shall never want another.” His hand moved again, thoughtfully and probably deliberately, to a place meant to enforce the sincerity of that last sentence, and she lost the thread entirely. “Your turn.”

She had to clear her throat, and she pushed his hand back down to her knee so she could think. “There was no one serious. There was once a young man I rather liked who showed some preference for Jane, which I believe was very sensible of him, and nothing came of it on either side. Jane was more affected by our mother’s attention to the matter than by the young man himself. He wrote her poetry, and Jane hated it — though she never said so, and I should not be saying so now.” She stopped. “It does not matter. It ended.”

“And yourself?”

She considered. “I have spent more time in my life being thoroughly exasperated by confusing gentlemen than falling in love with any of them. I am not sure I was ever in any real danger on that front.”

He shifted beside her. “How exasperated?”

“Considerably.” She heard the smile in her own voice and did not bother to suppress it. “There was, for instance, the gentleman of my acquaintance who was perfectly satisfied that fifteen minutes’ lecture on the suitability of his patroness would induce me to accept him. He had the lecture prepared in advance. He delivered it standing up. And that was how he proposed! Can you credit it?”

“He did?” Her husband fell silent for a few seconds. “I had not… That is, I never knew there had been other…”

“Besides Sibley? Just the one. I did not accept him. He was very surprised.”

“I imagine.”

“There was another I rather liked. He had a great many good qualities.”

“Oh?” The interest in that whisper was impossible even for him to conceal.

She smiled at that. For a man who tried to hide the whole of himself, he was so transparent sometimes. Her foot, bare under the table, found his — also bare, which she had only realised half an hour ago and had been quietly delighted by ever since — and she stroked it once, slow, along the inside arch. He set his fork down without finding the plate quite right, the small clatter of it against china, and leaned forward.

“And what happened?” he asked in a tight whisper.

“He took an early opportunity to inform me that he could not entertain any serious designs on a woman of my circumstances, by way of guarding me — most considerately — from any expectations I might have entertained on the subject.”

She heard his throat make a gulping sound. “Oh… He… He had no means?”

“Hardly. Second son of an earl, a colonel of no small reputation. I imagine the lack was not in his purse but his lifestyle. But it does not signify, for I only liked him in an offhanded sense. Good company, I suppose.”

“All the same, he was a fool to say it.”

“He was honourable. I have nothing against him. He was only being honourable too plainly, and I had not asked.”

“And these are the gentlemen who exasperated you? Was there… no other? No one worth even a mention?”

“Those are two of them.” She took another sip, drawing out the pace of it. “The most provoking was a third.”

The hand on her knee did not move, but it felt like the muscles of his fingers locked. She had his attention now in a way she had not had it five minutes ago, which interested her more than she wanted to admit.

“In what way the most provoking?”

“In the way that a gentleman of considerable ability and some consequence can be provoking when he does not quite behave as he ought, and one cannot decide whether he is worth the effort of understanding or merely arrogant and insufferable. The other two were merely inconvenient. This one occupied a great deal more of my attention than I would have cared to give him.” She took her time over another sip. “Whose good opinion I might have thought worth earning, had he extended rather less pride in its direction.”

His hand was still on her knee, but his breathing was either completely silent or utterly arrested. “You speak as though you were more intrigued than you will admit.”

“Intrigued?” She frowned in thought. “No, that is not the right word. I found it a relief when his interest was directed elsewhere. I was never entirely comfortable around him.”