“Will Meg suffer?” she asked, looking very directly at him. She had moved at last. Her arms had fallen to her sides. And her hands were fidgeting with the sides of her skirt. “And Nessie? And the children? And Stephen? Oh, surely not. It would be so absurd. And so unfair.”
He clasped his own hands loosely behind his back.
“Will Miss Wrayburn suffer?” Her eyes widened.
He pursed his lips but did not answer. There was nothing to say that she did not already know.
“Your aunt wants to have Miss Wrayburn under her own roof,” she said. “She wants to prepare her for her come-out next year. She thinks you an unsuitable guardian. But are you not her guardian? Can your aunt take her away even after this scandal?”
“Charlotte’s father appointed three guardians,” he explained to her. “Clarence’s father, now Clarence himself, me, and Mr. Seth Wrayburn, Charlotte’s great-uncle. Her fate on any matter can be decided by any two of the three of us.”
“And where is Mr. Wrayburn?” she asked.
He pointed downward.
“Here in London,” he said. “He is a recluse. He is not amused at the flurry of activity in which he has been involved during the past week. He does not like either Clarence or his mother, and has always preferred to leave things as they are with Charlotte living with me. But he is annoyed with me today. He gave me an ultimatum when I called on him this morning.”
It did not take her long to understand.
“Miss Wrayburn can remain with you,” she said, “provided you squash the scandal and silence the gossips by marrying me. Is that the ultimatum?”
“More or less,” he said.
“More or less?”
“More rather than less,” he admitted. “He did suggest a few days ago that if I do not want Lady Forester in charge of Charlotte’s come-out next year I had better marry so that my wife can sponsor and chaperone her instead. Today, though, he indicated that my choice of bride has been narrowed to one candidate.”
“Me.”
He pursed his lips again.
“This is why he did it, then, is it not?” she said. “Sir Clarence Forester, I mean. He did it so that Mr. Wrayburn would have no choice but to grant custody of Miss Wrayburn to his mother.”
“Charlotte is very rich,” he said, “or will be on her marriage. And Clarrie is very poor and very single.”
“He means to marry her.” Her voice was flat. And then she laughed suddenly, though there was no hint of amusement in the sound. “I always imagined that when I finally gave serious consideration to a marriage proposal, I would have only myself to consider-and the man who was making the proposal. Did I like and respect him? Did I have an affection for him? Did he like and respect and have an affection for me? Would I have a reasonable expectation that we could be happy together for the rest of our lives? Was there-oh, was there that extra spark of… of what? Of romance, of magic, of… of… of love?”
“And you cannot answer any of those questions in the affirmative now?” he asked her. “None of them?”
She shook her head slowly.
Double damnation! He did not need this. But then, neither did she.
“I am being asked,” she said, “to think of what other people will think of me-some of them people I do not even know, all of them people I do not even care about. I am being asked to think about the good name of my sisters and brother, of my niece and nephew. I am being asked to save your sister from a fate that seems quite unthinkable. I am being asked to marry, not for something, but to prevent a whole lot of things. Marriage ought to be about only the two people concerned and their feelings for each other. Instead it is about a whole society. Society does not care if we will be happy or miserable, does it? It does not care that we will certainly be miserable.”
Will be? As opposed to would be?
“Are you so sure,” he asked her, “that we would be miserable together, Miss Huxtable?”
Suddenly she was hurrying across the room toward him. She stopped when she was no more than a foot away and glared directly into his eyes. Her hands, he noticed, had balled into fists at her sides.
“It is a mask,” she said. “It is how you hide from the world. Open your eyes. Look fully at me. And tell me we would be happy together-for a lifetime.”
He felt jolted by her sudden anger. And rather shaken by her accusation that he wore a mask, that he was afraid, perhaps, to face the world with wide-open eyes.
He obliged her and gazed steadily back at her.
“I want you,” he said curtly. If it was honesty she was asking for, then by God she would have it. “And you want me. You cannot deny that, Miss Huxtable. I would not believe you.”
She laughed again-that harsh sound that was not really a laugh at all.
“You want to go to bed with me,” she said, and suddenly her pale cheeks flamed with color. “And I want to go to bed with you. Very well, I will not deny it. It is a fine recommendation indeed to marriage, Lord Montford. We are certain to be blissfully happy for the rest of our lives. We will be married. We may go to bed with each other as often as we please without incurring any future scandal. Thank you. All my misgivings have been blown away.”
He had not been feeling even one faint spark of amusement since walking into the house-not since he had stepped into White’s this morning, in fact. But he smiled now-slowly and with genuine amusement.
He wondered how often in the future she would be tortured with embarrassment at the memory of talking so explicitly of going to bed with him.
“It would be one consolation for being forced into marriage, you must confess,” he said. “Making love at night, during rainy mornings, during the sleepy afternoons, out in the woods at any time of the day or night, in the bottom of a boat, underneath-”
“Stop it!” she commanded. “Stop it this minute. And open your eyes. Marriage is not sex, Lord Montford.”
Roses bloomed in her cheeks again. Scarlet ones. And they flamed rather than bloomed.
He smiled again and said nothing. He did not open his eyes.
“You do not understand, do you?” she said. “You do not understand about friendship and companionship and mutual respect and togetherness and affection and-and l-love. It is inconceivable to you that a man and a woman can share any of those things and need them all if the marriage is to be a decent one. You think it is nothing but s-” She lost her courage with the second mention of the word.
“-ex,” he completed for her. “Is a marriage only friendship and respect and affection, then? It sounds yawningly dull to me. How are children to be begotten?”
Roses turned into flames in her cheeks and she swallowed awkwardly.
“You just do not understand,” she said.
And he supposed he did not. Except that he did like her-it was not all lust he felt for her. He even-yes, he did-felt a certain affection for her. He certainly liked her better than any other woman he had ever met. Perhaps even as well as he liked and was fond of Charlotte. But was not the fact that they wanted to bed each other the best consolation they could find for being forced into marrying each other?
Apparently not.
You just do not understand.
“Then perhaps,” he said abjectly, “you can make it your mission in life to make me understand, Katherine.”
Her eyes widened.
“I have not given you permission to make free with my name,” she said.
He let his eyes smile alone this time.
“And yet,” he said, “you speak of our marriage as something that will happen. Am I to address you for the rest of our lives, then, as Lady Montford?”