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Before he could send her friends from the room and tell her as much, Adelaide said, “I’ve no need for a sponsor or a benefactor. I am not his mistress.”
“Then what,” the Duchess asked from her place at the far end of the room. “Is he yours?”
Adelaide gave a little laugh. “I can’t afford him.”
Sesily had also found a box of hard biscuits and was munching on one. “Do you require a loan?”
“No!”
Sesily looked to Imogen. “Maybe the kiss on the dock has inspired her to... do a bit of sampling.”
It was Henry’s turn for raised eyebrows, and he couldn’t resist a firm look at Adelaide, whose pretty ears were turning scarlet. “There will be no sampling.”
“Hang on!” Sesily announced, as though she’d just invented the wheel. “You were the man on the docks! I didn’t recognize you without your beard—that’s a very nice shave, by the way. So. You’re not sampling, and she’s not your mistress . . . are you planning to make an honest woman of our Adelaide?”
A little groan escaped Adelaide. “Sesily.”
“Someone has to play the older brother, Adelaide.”
“And you think you’re the one for the role?” Imogen interrupted. “You? Sexily Talbot?” Henry’s brows rose. He had heard the name bandied about in men’s clubs and smoking rooms, but was shocked to hear it aloud with the woman in question.
“Are you lot always like this?”
“Always,” Imogen replied.
“You’ll get used to it when you make an honest woman of our Adelaide,” Sesily said with a grin.
“No one is making an honest woman out of me!” Everyone in the room stilled, turning to look at her. “I’ve no intention of marrying, and neither does he.”
A fact from earlier that suddenly did not feel so true. He filed the realization away.
“Fair enough, but it does beg the question, Adelaide—” Lady Sesily began, teasing delight in her tone.
“It does not, in fact, beg any questions,” Adelaide interrupted.
“Is the duke taking advantage of you?” Imogen finished the question.
There it was. The opening he required. “I am.”
Everyone in the kitchens looked to him, each with a different expression. Admiration. Delight. Surprise... and on the face of the only woman who mattered... the only one who would ever matter...
Abject horror.
“You arenot.”
“I am,” he said. “There’s only one solution.”
“There is no solution!” she insisted.
“Then you admit there is a problem.”
“With your senses? Yes. You’ve taken leave of them.” She turned to her friends. “There is no problem. He is not taking advantage of me. If anything, I am taking advantage of him.”
What?He didn’t like that. “Hang on.”
“I am. It’s clear to the whole world.” She adjusted her spectacles. “I am me and you are... you. And you look... like you... and I look... like me... and you were good for a...”
“Brisk walk?” Imogen suggested.
