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Puzzled, s
he let Pomeroy direct her down a wide corridor towards the archway that led into Max’s suite of rooms. More flowers, and a lit candelabra, making a pool of soft light. In the candlelight the furnishings glowed, and there was the unmistakable smell of lemon polish.
It wasn’t until she stepped inside Max’s bedchamber, and saw him propped up upon his pillows, still bandaged and pale, but freshly shaven, that Marietta realized what had happened. The spit and polish was in her honor, because Max and his servants could not bear to think that she should see them at less than their best.
Marietta felt tears sting her eyes and hurriedly blinked them away. It would never do for Max to see how affected she was; any weakness on her part could give him a reason to refuse the offer she was about to put to him.
“Miss Greentree,” he said, his voice a little husky but otherwise strong and scrupulously polite. He met Pomeroy’s eyes over her head. “Would you bring the tray up now, Pomeroy?”
“Very good, my lord.”
Marietta wanted to protest that the stairs were too steep and Pomeroy’s legs too old, and she didn’t need refreshment anyway, but again she stopped herself. What right had she to refuse their hospitality, for whatever reason, when it obviously meant so much to them?
The door closed behind the butler. The drapes were drawn, and despite the lamp on a chest of drawers, it was gloomy in here. She was tempted to throw back the window coverings and bring in the spring sunshine, but again she stopped herself. The light probably hurt Max’s eyes. As she walked toward him, she could see that he was also dressed for the occasion, at least from the waist upwards. He was wearing a clean, pressed white shirt with dark necktie, and, buttoned over the top, a red and purple brocade jacket. His hair was brushed and dampened, to flatten the exuberant curls above his clean bandage, while beneath it his handsome face appeared pale and gaunt.
“You look much better, Lord Roseby,” she said, suddenly uncharacteristically shy. She had begun to feel as if she knew Max, but this man seated before her was a stranger—an aristocratic stranger.
“I am on the mend, thank you, Miss Greentree,” he answered her in a subdued voice, although his eyes were bright and watchful.
“My brother-in-law was called away on some urgent estate matters, to Derbyshire. My sister required my presence, Lord Roseby, or I would have—”
“Please, Miss Greentree, there is no need to explain yourself to me.”
“The doctor—”
“He does not think I am in any great danger, apart from a headache that refuses to go away. But that’s to be expected, I suppose, after the crack on the head I received.”
“Perhaps you should—”
“Miss Greentree.” He sounded chilly, once again a stranger. Surprised and dismayed, Marietta met his eyes and waited. “I know you mean well, and I appreciate your kindness in thinking of me, but I am fit enough now. I am sure you have many far more important matters that require your attention—your…your sister, and so on—and that you will be relieved to return to them.”
He was giving her her marching orders. In a polite and ducal manner, he was saying that he’d had enough of her. After all she had done for him! Marietta felt something hot and angry catch alight inside her, and knew from the way in which his gaze was suddenly arrested that he saw the reflection of it in her eyes.
“I don’t think you quite understand, my lord,” she said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere—at least not just yet.”
“Miss Greentree, I have nothing to offer that could possibly interest you. And I certainly don’t want your pity…”
“Goodness me, if you think I care a jot about your appalling situation then you are quite wrong, Max. You can mope about your big empty house feeling sorry for yourself all you like. That is entirely your affair.”
Good, she had made him angry. Even as he struggled to control it, she saw it in the tightening of his mouth and the lowering of his eyebrows.
“Then what do you want?” he demanded grumpily.
That was more like it—Marietta smiled. “I have a proposition to put to you, Max.”
He didn’t look happy. “What sort of proposition?” he asked suspiciously.
Marietta had thought about this moment, and she knew that to win Max over she had to appeal to his gentlemanly instincts. The very things that might prevent her from completing the tasks that Aphrodite would set her.
She drew the chair up close beside his bed and sat down on it, ignoring the way he stiffened, and launched into her speech. “I have already told you that my mother is Aphrodite, my real mother that is. When I was barely more than a baby I was kidnapped with my two sisters, and taken away from her. I’ve only been reunited with her for a few short years, but it has been long enough to convince me that I would like to follow in her footsteps. I want to be a courtesan, Lord Roseby.”
He didn’t say anything, although he turned even paler and his eyes seemed riveted on hers.
“I know this is not the sort of ambition usually expressed by a genteel young lady—but then I am not like other genteel young ladies. I-I am unlikely to make a good marriage, the sort of marriage I once believed I would make. When I was younger I did something very foolish, Max. I fell under the spell of a most unsuitable man and, when my family refused to contemplate marriage, I was persuaded by my beloved to run away to the Scottish border.”
“Miss Greentree,” he said, and it was a plea for her to stop.
Marietta had no intention of stopping. “Of course he never meant to marry me, and after we halted for the night and he…well, ruined me, he left me there. The incident could have been hushed up, that was certainly what my Uncle William Tremaine would have preferred, but by an unfortunate coincidence one of my mother’s—that is, Lady Greentree’s—disgruntled employees was staying at the same inn, and he recognized me. He took great pleasure in spreading the story about, and soon it was everywhere. I suppose the additional fact that it had recently become known that I was Aphrodite’s daughter, made my misfortune lurid enough to capture the imagination of the entire country.”
