Not a great attempt. Worse than before, except that his voice sounded less like a petulant grumble.
“I have just realized something about you,” she said. “It is something I had not even suspected until tonight, and it is a complete surprise. You do not really love yourself, do you? You do not even like yourself particularly well.”
Good Lord! He stared at her transfixed, his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair.
“What poppycock are you speaking now?” he asked her, and irritability was back in a heartbeat.
“And I never expected to hear the word impossible on your lips,” she said. “A workable marriage is impossible? Love is impossible-on both our parts? I thought, Jasper, that it was a matter of supreme pride with you to win a wager.”
“It is kind of you to remind me of the only one I lost,” he said.
“You did not lose it,” she said. “You chose a more courageous and honorable outcome-which you, of course, interpreted as a humiliation. But it is not of that wager I speak.”
He laughed softly.
“The one I made at Lady Parmeter’s ball?” he said. “That was no wager, was it? A wager of one with no takers, no prize for a win, no forfeit for a loss, no time limit?”
“Those facts did not deter you before we were embroiled in scandal,” she said. “You were quite determined to make me fall in love with you. It is why you pursued me so relentlessly after that waltz. And you do have a taker-me. And there is a prize-me. And a forfeit too-the loss of me. And a time limit-the end of the house party.”
He gazed at her, speechless for once. But he felt good humor clawing its way back into his being. Trust Katherine not simply to be tragic.
“I will wager against you,” she said. “I say it cannot be done, that you can never persuade me to love you, that it is indeed impossible. That it would be a waste of your time to try. But you are the man to whom all things are possible, especially those things that seem quite out of reach. Well, I am out of reach. Totally. Make me love you, then.”
Tempting. But there was a problem.
“I would have nothing to offer in return,” he said. “Not anything that would be of value to you, anyway. I am not a romantic, Katherine, and if I ever pretended to be I would simply make an ass of myself.”
“That,” she said, “is something for you to work out for yourself.”
They stared at each other for a long time. The candles began to flicker. They had almost burned themselves out.
He felt a smile nudge at his eyes and tug at his lips. He could never persuade her to love him, could he? It would be a waste of his time to try, would it?
“But one thing,” she said. “If the wager is to become a real one, then we will raise the stakes.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“No love,” she said, “no sex.”
“Forever?” he asked.
“Until after the end of the wager,” she said. “And then we will see.”
A month of celibacy? And a new bride only once tasted? That was raising the stakes sky-high.
But the smile took possession of him. Impossible, was it?
An impossible wager.
They would see about that!
He got to his feet and moved toward her, his right hand extended.
“Agreed,” he said.
And she set her hand in his and they shook on it.
“The couch in the sitting room had better be as comfortable as it looks,” he said.
“Take a pillow,” she advised.
He did so and then turned and walked out of the bedchamber.
The candles flickered one more time and died just as he was closing the door behind him.
The couch had been very comfortable to sit on. But it was too narrow and too short for a bed. He lay wedged against the back, his feet elevated over one arm, his head propped over the other.
It was not a position conducive to sleep even if the wheels of his mind had not been turning at breakneck speed-mostly with the same unwelcome thought.
He was, by God, going to have to offer something in return for her love, which he would, of course, win. And he very much feared that only one thing would do. Devil take it, but he was going to have to fall in love with her. And he might as well tell himself quite firmly now that it was impossible or he would never feel challenged enough to do it.
It was impossible.
There!
Now it would be done. He would fall in love.
Lord, how the devil could he ever have thought this couch comfortable?
… heart of my heart, soul of my soul…
He grimaced.
Devil take it! Were there bricks in this pillow?
He was going to fall in love with her.
His own private wager with himself.
Impossible?
Of course.
But doable?
Of course!
And then he had an inspired idea. He moved off the couch, lay down on the floor with the pillow beneath his head and his coat over his arms, and addressed himself to sleep.
Comfort at last.
His legs were cold.
16
“AND one more thing,” Katherine said just as if they were in the middle of a conversation, when in reality they had been traveling all afternoon in virtual silence.
He was lounging at his ease across the corner of the carriage seat beside her, one booted foot propped on the seat opposite, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed-looking indolent, but not asleep. Indeed, she suspected that he was watching her, though how he could be doing that with his eyes closed she was not sure-except that he was a man who scorned impossibilities.
He was also a man who had made no move whatsoever all day to woo her love and win his wager. She had got up this morning and steeled herself for a day of blatantly seductive wiles. Instead he had talked pointedly about the weather for a time during the morning, had remarked finally that if he could not coax a smile out of her he might as well get some sleep since he had had precious little last night, had folded his arms, and had closed his eyes.
He looked wondrously attractive, of course, all relaxed, slumberous male, though he was not sleeping. He was taking up more than half the carriage interior. She had to keep her feet and knees tight together and hold her legs rather stiff to avoid brushing his knee when the carriage swayed, as it did almost every moment.
She had ignored him. Though she could draw no real satisfaction from doing so while he pretended to sleep. She wished he would wake up so that he would know himself ignored. Of course, she had stopped herself from laughing over some of his more absurd comments on the weather. She spoke in order to wake him, though that, of course, involved not ignoring him.
He opened his eyes.
“And one more thing,” she said again.
“Another?” he said. “Is this one more thing to add to the one more thing you mentioned a few moments ago? Two more things, in fact?”
She looked reproachfully at him.
“Charlotte is thrilled at our marriage,” she said. “And I do not think it is just because now she has someone to sponsor her come-out next year and no longer has to fear that she will be sent to her aunt. She genuinely loves you and wants you to be happy. She thinks you will be happy with me. She thinks we are in love.”