Chapter Twenty

" Y ou cannot do that," Purity insisted, already imagining every passerby was watching with interest.

Wrenching her arm free, she whirled away, getting only a few more steps before Foxford caught her again.

She turned on him, feeling feral. If she didn't have gloves on, she might do him an injury as her mother had taught her in a lesson on dealing with unwanted harassment. A well-placed scratch would buy her freedom. She could always bring her knee up to his manly parts, as her father had suggested to do in a dire emergency, but that seemed extreme.

Besides, this man was her fiancé, and if the marriage occurred, then she didn't want to unman him to the point they would be unable to have children.

Foxford stared down at her. "Tell me what I can do."

"You have done enough. Haven't you made it so we must marry?" she bit out. "Why? Why would you do this to me?"

A shadow crossed his face. He clenched his jaw. She even watched the muscles in his neck flex. None of that helped.

" The Times is not my fault," he insisted. "What precisely are you accusing me of?"

"Condemning me to be attached to you," she said, unable to rein in her intense feelings while trying desperately not to give in to histrionics. Her tone was strangely grating and accusatory. But after all, she was standing on a high bridge over quickly moving water with the Houses of Parliament overshadowing her and arguing with the notorious Bachelor Baron.

"You are opposite to the dream I had for a husband." Was that clear enough for him? "I want a man with all the social graces, as well as someone who can be loyal and loving."

"I am all those things," Foxford insisted, but his tone was more hesitant than adamant.

Purity shook her head. "People don't change their nature in the space of weeks," she hissed out the last word.

Foxford came a step closer as if they were in the intimate confines of a drawing room and not in the middle of Westminster Bridge.

"I didn't need to change, at least not my manners. I have always known which spoon or fork to use. I know how to comport myself in the company of the ton or even the royal family."

"Liar!" she said. "Then why did you need me to help you catch yourself a wife?"

"It was you!" he declared, throwing his hands in the air, then pointing at her. "It was always you."

"You are lying!" Purity said again, anguish bringing those tears to her eyes she vowed would not be spilled in public.

"I am not lying. I promise you. Didn't I behave well enough at the concert?"

She waved that away with a gesture of her hand. "One night listening to music. Even you couldn't blunder at the theatre."

"I do not blunder anywhere. Test me, put me through the trials."

"I don't need to. This very instant you are causing a scene, proving you don't understand the rules of polite society."

"Not fair," he said. "I tried to visit you at home."

Sighing, she glanced around her. In truth, no one seemed to care about two people having a row. But she did. "I will allow you to escort me home."

Without waiting, she began to walk the way she had come.

He fell into step beside her.

"Ask me some blasted questions about manners."

She pressed her lips tightly. This wasn't a game. This was her life and her future. And he was a rake, and an uncouth one at that.

"I have guarded against vulgarisms," he stated when she didn't speak. "I no longer fidget with my gloves, nor my pocket watch. I appear interested in everything those around me say even when I would rather stick my head in a barrel of pickled herring than listen to another insipid word. I don't interrupt, and I use no French affectations."

She continued to look ahead. "You have a good memory, and you mimic well, like a trained monkey."

"Argh!" he shouted over the side of the bridge, letting his yell of frustration blow out across the water.

This startled her, but in an instant, he was walking calmly alongside again.

"I never needed your help," he vowed. "It was simply a way to be close to you when you wouldn't let me near."

"Do you remember why I wouldn't let you near me, Lord Perfect Manners? Because of your reputation," she reminded him. "Are you saying you are not a libertine either?"

He hesitated, perhaps unwilling to accept the unflattering label.

"I suppose I was," Foxford allowed at last, "but I am no longer. I have had no association with any other female since the day we met."

"Another lie. What about the trio of women at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens?"

"Surely you are joking," he said. "I will speak of them one last time and then never again. Quinn came up to me, trailing those females who were hoping for some blunt from a willing gentleman."

"And?" she prompted.

"And I was not willing," he said flatly. "That covey of sad cattle was not remotely the class of women, not even of courtesans, with whom I would interact. Frankly, I'm insulted."

Was he serious?

"Moreover, I was only at Vauxhall hoping to see you. To that end, I looked all evening, but the place has gone downhill, as I told you it had. Even the harlots were the seediest. Frankly, I would recommend you no longer go to Vauxhall."

"I see," she said.

"Is that all you can say? We've filleted and exposed my doings as if I were a freshly caught codfish. And all you can say is, ‘I see.'"

"Did you intend for us to be discovered at Syon Park?" she asked, dreading the answer.

For if he had truly wanted her from the beginning, he might have become tired of waiting. His goal had been accomplished with one wretchedly wonderful kiss.

He halted. Someone behind them knocked into him and then, after a few choice curses, moved around them.

"Hey, there! Mind your mouth around a lady," Foxford called after the stranger, who kept moving, perhaps more quickly at the baron's sharp tone. Then surprisingly, Foxford took her arm and began to walk again.

"I swear to you, I did not have any hand in getting us discovered. I would never do such a dastardly thing. I cannot, however, blame you for thinking the worst of me. It has come to my understanding recently that I have somewhat of a bad reputation."

It was Purity's turn to stop dead, yet she managed to keep moving. Had he only just learned that? It was laughable if he hadn't realized the extent of his notoriety. Her steps faltered, but she corrected herself and let him continue.

"My plan has been to woo and win you by fair means. Granted, it has gone more slowly than I would have liked, and now, it has charged ahead like a stallion. Still, I promise you, I would never have wished for your reputation to suffer. I know what it means to you."

Did he? she wondered. Could any man, let alone a handsome, privileged cove of a man, understand?

"Fine words but too late," she reminded him. "The newspaper and, I suppose, its readers think as you once did — that my name is a silly name and now an ironic one, too. I am considered impure and loose. It would seem we became engaged to no avail."

"If I could do anything to change what has occurred, I would. I believe our engagement, long enough to show that you are not ... well, showing, if you understand my meaning, will help restore your good name. That, and your refusal to hide indoors."

"That was precisely what I intended to do," she confessed.

"I guessed as much, and it's exactly the wrong thing. You have never had to face anything like this, but I would urge you to go about your normal life. If you disappear, you will appear guilty."

"But I am," she said. " We are."

"We are not guilty of what they think. Not yet," he added, so softly she almost didn't hear him.

But she did, and it sent warmth winging through her. In the shake of a lamb's tail, her thoughts flew, as they constantly did, to their wedding night, to being naked before him, to having him touch her ...

"Let me dance with you at the next ball," he continued. "Twice, in fact. By then, our engagement will have been announced more formally than your mother did the other night. I, for one, will not play the happy bridegroom. I shall truly be one. If you can manage to smile, we shall seem a happy couple indeed. Everyone will be jealous, and they can all go to—"

"Foxford," she stopped his blasphemy.

"Why, Lady Purity, you broke your own rule and interrupted me. I am aghast."

Against all odds, a glimmer of mirth danced through her. She smiled.

Somehow, he'd managed to put her in a better mood and even make her feel less distraught. She supposed he was correct, and she would do better to hold her head up and not give a fig about the opinion of anyone beyond her family, who loved her.

Matthew had succeeded beyond what he could have hoped. But then, after they had passed through the crowded St. James Park and were strolling along the edge of Green Park, nearly at the Diamonds' home, Purity asked him a difficult question.

"What about your family?"

His heart sped up.

"What would you like to know about them?"

"When shall you introduce me to them? Won't they be astonished to learn you have a fiancée and are engaged to someone they have never met?"

"My father is deceased," he told her.

She squeezed his arm.

"My father told me. I am sorry for that."

"He died seventeen years ago. I couldn't tell you exactly from what. Influenza, I believe. My mother remarried. Since her new husband is a Scot, they live in Edinburgh, as do my full sister and my two half-brothers. We can visit after we are married. I'm sure my mother will adore you."

"Very well."

He'd wrapped that up neatly, without having to go into how he and his stepfather had often been at loggerheads, or the relief he'd experienced when he went to English boarding school to escape Edinburgh.

After university, he had never gone back except for brief visits. He wanted to look at the future and starting his own family, not dwell upon the past.

To that end, he made Purity promise to attend a dinner and dance at the end of the week before taking his leave. Feeling a tad cowardly, he decided not to enter the Diamond home in case her parents still had the recent column in hand.

Instead, he was of two minds. One told him to go directly to Lady Varley and blast her hair back, for he was certain she was behind The Times rubbish. The other, though, directed his steps to his club, hoping Varley would be there. Maybe gloating.

Lady Fortuna smiled, and the man was already seated in the dining room. Even better, Quinn wasn't there to stop him from confronting the wretch.

Walking directly to the table at which Varley was scoffing down a plate of roast beef, minted peas, and Yorkshire puddings, Foxford wasted no time.

"You're a loathsome worm without a backbone, taking your spite out upon an innocent lady. Tell me, do you toss off while reading about other people in the paper?"

Instead of jumping to his feet with fisted outrage, which would have suited Matthew perfectly fine, Varley smiled.

"Good day, Foxford. What's all this bristling about? You've never minded The Times keeping us up-to-date on your adventures before."

"My adventures are my business. Why don't you mind your own?"

Varley shrugged. "I promise you, I do."

Matthew flexed his fingers. Gentlemen around them had stopped eating, pausing with silverware to their mouths. A few had newspapers on their tablecloths and eyed him with amusement. In a moment, someone was probably going to call out a wager on how many blows it would take him to level Varley to the carpet.

Matthew took a deep breath. He wished the red haze weren't before his eyes, but where Purity was concerned, it was difficult to take a placid view of her tormentor.

If fisticuffs weren't in his future, perhaps he could still get in a low blow. Towering over the seated Varley, he said the most disrespectful thing that came to mind.

"You need to tether your wife by a shorter lead. She's a vindictive hoyden."

This time Varley clenched his jaw, but still he didn't rise to the bait or rise from his chair for that matter.

"Insulting Lady Varley will do you no good. If she wishes to speak to a newspaper editor about what she saw with her own eyes, then she will. And I shall offer her applause for it. I suppose you won't need a tether for that prim mouse whom you intend to join in wedlock. She doesn't seem to have the spunk to roam very far."

Matthew sighed. Naturally, Varley would turn the tables and try to insult Purity, but the worst the man could come up with was how well-behaved she was. That was the type of woman Matthew wanted by his side, although he did not consider her mousy in the least.

Regardless, he might as well take this right to the gutter. For the first time, Matthew smiled back.

"I am not talking about whether your wife went to The Times with her long-tongued, chaff-cutter of a mouth. I am talking about her intruding upon my personal residence. Next time Emilia comes sniffing around my door," he said loud enough for the eavesdroppers to hear. "I will give my staff instructions not to allow her entrance. My butler only let her in because of our earlier association," he added to twist the knife that he'd swived with Varley's wife, "but I didn't appreciate her lounging in my drawing room uninvited earlier this week. After all, tongues might wag that I was polishing some part of her."

That did it.

Varley blanched as white as his well-tended cravat. Finally, he was horn mad.

Tossing his napkin onto the table, he rose to his feet and took a swing at Matthew, who had his arms up before his opponent landed the blow.

Attacked first, he was within his rights to plant a facer, which he did. It felt damn good, too, until Varley returned the favor and caught him on his right cheek bone before he could dodge the hit. They landed a few more punches, finally one each to the gut before the club manager came over and put a halt to it.

Sadly for Varley, Matthew managed to give him one more plump in the breadbasket, which doubled the man over and sent him back two steps into the chair at the next table.

Matthew straightened his jacket. "Mind me, Varley, keep your wife away from my house."

Turning, he walked out, knowing he'd just made an enemy.