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Hostess or no, Lady Follet was about to have a rude guest on her hands, he thought to himself.
“It makes little sense that you are sending her away so soon,” Marguerite continued, “lest it be an act of conscience, of some form of chivalry. And so, my dear Sebastian, I may ask of you—why her?”
“She is no jezebel. She deserves better.”
She stared blankly at him, and he thought that he might finally have put an end to the conversation, but then she began to laugh. Containing his irritation, he waited patiently for her to be done with the hilarity.
“Forgive me,” she said at last, wiping away a tear. “I never would have thought to hear you utter such things, but I rather suspected that the day would come when a woman would stir the tender part of you.”
The choice of weapon for women was words, and Marguerite, like Miss Merrill, would have done as well had she kicked him in the groin.
“I am pleased to be a source of humor for you, my dear, but I fail to see where this dialogue is headed.”
“Mon dieu, I have never seen you this cross. This mademoiselle must be très spécial, indeed. I must meet her.”
He took a step toward her. “You will not.”
Her brows shot up. “How protective we are. Tell me, she did not ask for you to send her away?”
“It matters not.”
“Of course it does. You said she deserved better. What if she doesn’t want better—at the least, not your patronizing definition of what is better for her.”
He considered Marguerite’s words and tried to recall Miss Merrill’s reaction upon hearing that she was to return home. He had been so immersed in his own objective that he had not paid much attention to what she might have been thinking.
“It is better that she go,” he said at last.
“Coward.”
Of all the things Marguerite could have said, he did not expect that. Rather, he had thought she might praise him for his rare display of chivalry with Miss Merrill or chastise him for being a chivalrous prude. Being called a coward was worse than anything Anne Wesley might have said.
“My dear, you are deliberately trying to provoke my ire,” he said, taking off his gloves as if he meant to slap her across the face and challenge her to a duel.
She eyed the gloves warily. “Only because I adore you, Sebastian, and only the friendship between us stays the jealousy I feel toward your mademoiselle.”
“If you wish to renew our acquaintance, I can have the groom unsaddle my horse.”
“No. I will not serve as a means for you to forget her. I do not wish for you to envision her while you lie with me. If you are the Sebastian Cadwell I thought you were, you would not let her go.”
“How many times do you intend to challenge my manhood, Marguerite?”
She smiled.
“It would do no good,” he said. “If she returns home now, there is a chance no one would find out that she had ever been here. If she stayed, while we might enjoy ourselves for a few days more, we would only defer the misery of parting.”
“That has never stopped you before. Is it her misery or yours that concerns you?”
He considered the many women he had bid farewell to. Some parted with wistfulness, others parted with vain attempts to seduce him. But he had been clear with them all—their time at Château Follet marked the end and not the beginning of an affair. He did not think he could bear seeing the sadness in Miss Merrill’s eyes. Already he suspected she, like so many before her, had fallen a little in love with him. Nor had he a desire to enlarge the emptiness he was already feeling upon her departure.
“I will not see her ruined,” he said stubbornly.
“How condescending of you.”
Her words struck him as ironic. He had used the same with Miss Merrill. And now it was he who sought to shield her from herself—contradicting his own arguments. He would have preferred to keep Miss Merrill and show her body the many paths to ecstasy. Instead, he had chosen to be selfless, and for that he was being called a condescending coward.
“Go to her, mon cheri,” Marguerite urged.
She gazed at him with obvious affection. He wondered if Miss Merrill would gaze at him with such warmth. The prospect beckoned as much as her body called to his.
