Chapter 17 A Piece of Work #2
“No! Why should you think—”
“A lover—do you have one?”
Abruptly she rose, nearly knocking her canvas to the floor. She reached a hand to steady it even as she raised her chin to glare at him. “Who are you to ask me such questions? I owe you nothing, least of all—”
“I will not be made a fool,” he said, stepping closer. Too close. Close enough that she could see the muscle ticking in his jaw, the barely leashed fury in his dark eyes. “I am not interested in being among a bevy of admirers if that is your game.”
“My game? How can you accuse me of playing games when it is you who continues to approach me with your—your presumptuous compliments? You, who—” She stopped herself just in time, breathing hard, aware she had been about to accuse him of Mr Darcy’s crimes.
“Who what?” His eyes narrowed.
“Nothing. Forgive me, I misspoke.”
His jaw clenched a moment, then he said, “Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“What have you heard? What is it that you think you know of me?”
“What I know, beyond a doubt, is that this”—she gestured between them—“this is inappropriate, perhaps scandalous, possibly even ruinous. And it is, as ever, the lady who will suffer the consequences while a man goes on his merry way.”
“Is that what you think?” His voice had dropped to something raw and ragged. “That this is a game to me? An amusement?”
“What else could it possibly be?”
“Love.” The single word fell between them like a stone into still water. “Heaven help me, I think I may be falling in love with you, much though I wish it otherwise.”
The confession should have moved her. Instead, it ignited something hot and desperate in her chest. “I understood you to believe in love. What was it you told me the night we first…spoke? That you believed love was a practical endeavour?”
“It is hardly practical to fall in love with a woman I cannot even name. I have no knowledge of you—whether you are suitable, whether you are free, whether you are even who you claim to be. Perhaps you are married, perhaps you are forty, perhaps you are—” He paused, and when he continued, his voice dripped with barely concealed disdain.
“—perhaps you are a governess in service to someone of my acquaintance.”
The word ‘service’ landed like a blow.
Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her face, then rush back in a scalding wave.
He had found the exact place to wound her—the precise point where her pride and her shame intersected.
Yes, she was employed. Yes, she was dependent on the generosity of others for her very bread.
Yes, her father’s failures had reduced his daughters to this necessity.
And here stood a man who would never, could never, understand what it meant to be so fallen.
“Then by all means,” she said, her voice shaking with barely suppressed fury, “resist the inclination towards me with all your considerable will. I am certain a man of your”—she nearly choked on the word—“your elevated position has practised self-denial before.”
His head snapped back towards her. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing at all. Nothing of any concern.”
“Everything about you concerns me—that is the accursed problem!” He moved towards her again, and this time she had nowhere to retreat, the easel at her back.
“Is this why you refuse to tell me your name? Do you know who I am? Do you know we are unsuitable—that I am unsuitable for you—even if I do not?”
The laugh that escaped her was sharp enough to draw blood, but she did not answer directly. “I daresay you know, in some part of your heart, that I am not for you. For although you might not know what I am, I daresay you know precisely what I am not.”
“You know absolutely nothing about what I would or would not do,” he spat. “What I might feel or not feel.”
“I think I do.” She met his gaze squarely.
“Well, we cannot know, can we? You will not tell me who you are. You will not allow the introduction. You are judge and jury, convicting me without a fair trial.”
They stood as close as could be. Her respirations were making her chest ache, and his were no less laboured.
Finally, she said, “I will not humiliate myself—or you—by pretending there could be anything honourable and good in any of this. Pray do excuse me, sir.”
She re-took her seat and picked up her brush, even though she trembled so violently she could not possibly paint. She did not look up when she heard his sharp intake of breath, and instead he bent, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“Tell me your name,” he said, low and urgent. “Tell me, and let me prove you are mistaken in your judgment of me.”
She forced herself to say, “Leave me be, sir. This conversation is over. This strange little…friendship is over.”
“It is not—”
“It is.” She gripped her brush so tightly she felt it might snap. “Society would dictate that we ought not to even speak in this way that we do, and I am beginning to see the wisdom in that.”
He straightened but said nothing for a long moment. At length he said, “As you wish.” Within moments, he was gone, the gallery echoing with the sound of the door closing behind him.