Chapter 5

5

He couldn't help himself. He had to ask. ‘Who might that be?'

She told him; it was a name he knew, and he muffled a curse. ‘That… that popinjay? No!' Every human feeling must revolt at the prospect. After a moment he realised that he had not said the last part of this thought aloud, and he was glad. She looked at him, her liquid brown eyes wide with surprise.

‘But if you refuse me, sir, what can I do but continue? It would surely be no concern of yours.'

‘A man whose figure owes everything to padding, and nothing to nature? A man whose calves are carved out of pieces of cork? A man who wears a corset ?' He was suddenly and unreasonably angry, though not with her, and if the gentleman in question had entered the room, had minced across the threshold in all his artificial glory – admittedly an unlikely occurrence – he would have been sorely tempted to knock the jackstraw down, and see how he liked that .

‘Well, I didn't know,' she said. ‘How could I? I'm not quite sure how you do, for that matter.'

He looked at her, frowning. ‘One can simply… tell. He creaks! Audibly. Like a stable door in a gale.' He might have been exaggerating slightly, but his point still stood.

‘Oh. I had not observed that. I'll have to listen next time I dance with him. But it doesn't sound very appealing, I must say.' There was, he thought, amusement dancing in those extraordinary brown eyes. ‘I have been proceeding in the belief that all the gentlemen under consideration were exactly what they pretended to be. Perhaps that was na?ve of me.' She did not run her eyes over his frame assessingly as she spoke, but he thought it cost her an effort not to do so. He was, he realised, highly attuned to her slightest movement and change of expression.

‘I presume your list, as it progresses, is going to involve the removal of clothing, including, if necessary, corsets?' he blurted out and was instantly sorry for his cruelty and crudeness. But she did not blink. She had been embarrassed before, but she had regained her composure now. For him, it was otherwise.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Inevitably.'

He looked at her as she sat there, demure in green silk and crisp white lawn, her hair securely braided and coiled upon her head and an absurd little scrap of lace perched upon it to serve as a widow's cap. The habit-shirt she wore under her gown was almost transparent, offering him tantalising glimpses of the warm skin beneath it, and it fastened at her neck with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons. Two of them. He would very much like to unfasten those buttons and press a hot kiss to the hollow of her throat. To taste her skin. He remembered now how she had nipped at his lower lip with her teeth yesterday and sucked on it. If he understood her correctly… He knew he did understand her correctly, incredible as it seemed. He had no option.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘Yes?'

‘Yes, I will do as you ask. Yes, I will help you cross off the items from your list.' He was, in a detached sort of a way, impressed at how steady his voice was as it emerged. He sounded – he hoped he sounded – entirely unconcerned, as if he did not care one way or the other about the bargain he had just entered into. He might have been ordering a new pair of boots, or recommending the latest novel from the circulating library. Cool, gentlemanly, correct. He thought his heart was breaking a little in his breast, at the prospect of making love to her when she had explicitly said that she could never love him, would never marry again. He felt suddenly cold now, as though someone had stabbed him with an icicle. But he was almost sure he did not show it. He must not show it, for the last thing he wanted was for some other man, some unconscionable villain, to sit in his place and hear this extraordinary proposal. Proposition. Whatever it was.

‘Good!' she said. And then after a moment, blushing a little, ‘Thank you.'

It was close to unendurable that she would say such a thing to him, to think to express gratitude in such extraordinary circumstances, and he found he could not, in fact, endure it. He had to protect himself somehow, to claw back some shreds of self-respect. She was an exceptional woman, but she was still na?ve – had she never paused to consider why any man, why any decent man at any rate, would agree to her scheme? If the fellow she approached with her outrageous plan was not a complete scoundrel, there could be only one reason he would countenance it for a second, surely? But obviously, it had not so much as crossed her mind that he or any other man might already harbour tender feelings for her, and he must think of another reason, for the sake of his own sanity.

‘I am glad to agree, ma'am, because it suits my current state of mind very well,' he said stiffly. She shot him a questioning glance, and he explained, ‘I too do not mean to marry. I am resolved not to. I love, I adore, another, and she is unobtainable to me. She can never return my regard; my great love for her must always be unrequited. And so I am able to oblige you, madam.' That had all sounded rather well, he thought, until the last part, which was somewhat unsatisfactory, possibly slightly ridiculous, but it was too late to do anything about that now.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, and her ready sympathy almost unmanned him. It was preposterous. He could happily have laid his head in her lap and cried for his lost, unobtainable love – who was, in fact, her. Instead, he was, presumably quite soon, going to kiss her again. With tongues. And whatever came after that. Her confounded, mysterious, damnably enticing list.

‘I am so sorry,' she said again, her face soft and open and entirely enchanting. Her eyes were deep forest pools and a man could drown in them. And then, devastatingly, ‘Who is she? Do I know her – is she a married lady?'

It was so typical of her terrifying frankness to ask. Oh God. His mind was blank, and in his extreme agitation, it did not occur to him for a second that he could simply refuse to answer, to say that it was a private matter, a matter of honour even, and not to be discussed. They had gone beyond that, somehow. Far beyond that. He felt he had to say something. Anything. In a strangled voice quite unlike his own, he said, ‘It's my cousin's wife. Lady Irlam. Cassandra.'