Chapter 7 #2
“At least we will not have to shout to hear each other.” She took her seat. “It would have been impossible to talk much, with you down there and me here. Perhaps we could have sent messages to each other by a little dog who ran between us.”
That amused him, perhaps because it became apparent no dog would have been needed, since two-legged creatures obliged them. Footmen arrived to serve the meal, which began with a fine fish soup.
“Will they stand there the whole time?” she asked when the footmen took up stations near the door.
“Only when they are not needed.”
One was needed to pour a different wine. The other disappeared and returned with some lamb in a wonderful sauce. She had not eaten since breakfast, and made no effort to hide how heavenly she found the food.
“I will be spoiled by this. I am beginning to be glad Mrs. Ludlow asked me to leave.”
“Her board was not generous?”
“She feeds the girls and teachers well enough. Her cook is a drunk, however, so it is rarely well prepared.”
“Perhaps you should start a school with better food.”
“That would be impossible.”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“Mrs. Ludlow only has that school because she inherited that house,” she explained. “One needs a building to have a school, a very large one if one is going to take boarding students. I could never afford a London house, so if I tried that I would have to do so in a distant city.”
“Can you obtain another position teaching at another school?”
“Mrs. Ludlow might feel obligated to mention my father in her reference. However, I have an earlier reference that I can use instead. It is not unqualified, unfortunately. Also, the recent years will need to be explained. Again, if I go to a distant city—”
“That would take you too far from your father.” He frowned and set down his fork and knife. “If you cannot teach, what will you do instead?”
“I have some money that I had saved for another purpose, but it will keep me if I need it to. Also, my mother used to act as an accounts keeper for small tradesmen while I was growing up. They could pay her much less than a man, so they allowed themselves to be convinced to hire a woman for that reason. If necessary, I will let my services the same way.”
He reacted with an inscrutable expression. He called for more wine, then told the footman to leave the bottle. Another course arrived, of small fowl accompanied by root vegetables. She tasted hers. Pheasant. She dug in, noticing that Ives had not returned to his own meal.
He regarded her with cool assessment, much as he had that first night when she intruded on his home.
“What other purpose?” he asked. “You said you had saved money for another purpose.”
She hesitated. She had never told anyone her dream. She realized she wanted to tell him, however. She was proud of her plans, odd though he may find them. “I intend to go to Italy, to study. There are several universities there that allow women to stand for examinations for degrees.”
His eyebrow rose, but he neither scoffed nor laughed. “Which universities allow it? I confess I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Padua, Bologna, and Pavia have given higher degrees to women. Bologna has even had women professors. I plan to go to Padua, however, because that is where my mother studied and I have names of people there who might help me.” Talking about her plans brought her excitement about them bubbling up in her imagination.
“Mrs. Ludlow mentioned your mother attending a university. I had assumed she misspoke. So you will follow in her footsteps. Will you pursue a degree in mathematics?”
“Questions may come from any of the arts or sciences.” She sounded mad, she knew.
Even madder than he might think. She had not been studying these last few years as intensely as her dream required.
The money she had, even the thirty pounds she had found, would be gone soon.
She had continued honing her knowledge of Latin while at Mrs. Ludlow’s, but her command of Italian, taught to her by her mother, had become very rusty from disuse.
She poked at her fowl. Her enthusiasm retreated under the weight of her plan’s impossibility. “I will have a lot of catching up to do. It would be years before I could pass the examinations. It may even be too late already.”
“I doubt that. But what has held you back? Have you been waiting to pursue your studies while you saved the money?”
It would be so easy to simply say yes. Perhaps it was the wine that led her to tell him the truth instead.
“I had the money once before, when I lived and taught in Birmingham,” she said. “I was distracted from my goal, however. Then the money was lost, so I had to start over.”
His gaze invaded her own, curious and searching. Then sympathy touched his expression. “You spoke of a qualified reference. Was it qualified due to this distraction affecting your reputation? Were you distracted by a man?”
How had he guessed?
“Did the scoundrel steal the money? Is that how it was lost?”
Her face burned hotly. “The lying rogue took every damned penny.”
“At least you knew for certain what he was. You were not left wondering, or pining.”
“Such good fortune for me. I was able to console myself that I had been a thorough fool, from beginning to end. That was so much better than harboring a few decent memories that might excuse my judgment.”
The kindness that could warm his gaze unexpectedly did so now. “My apologies. Of course you must have been disillusioned and hurt. I should not have attempted to pretend there was a bright side to it.”
She looked down at her plate, battling the revival of the humiliation she had experienced when she indeed knew Nicholas for the scoundrel he was. Disillusioned did not sufficiently describe her emotions that day. She had been unhinged with fury.
“Do not apologize. You were correct. Better to know the truth.”
A silence fell. She kept her gaze downcast and forced the bad memories into the past again.
“You were wrong today, about that kiss,” he said. “It was not inexplicable. Surely you know that.”
She looked up, surprised.
“From my perspective, inexplicable is an apt word,” she said.
“I do not believe you are that ignorant of men, Miss Belvoir. In fact you have just admitted as much. Those bright eyes of yours see most clearly, I think.”
“I am sure that you kiss many women. That you kissed me makes very little sense, though. Hence it is inexplicable. My person is not fashionable. Rather the opposite, in notable ways. Men do not, as a general habit, impulsively kiss me.”
“How stupid of them.” His eyes burned. Goodness, he appeared devilishly handsome.
He lifted the decanter and tipped more wine into her glass. “That kiss was also not nearly as impulsive as I led you to think, either. I have been wanting to kiss you since the first moment I saw you in my chambers a few days ago.”
“If not impulsive, then was it at least rash?” She responded coolly, hiding as best she could how his words affected her.
“Rash? No, I would not describe it as rash.” He pretended heavy thought. “Let me see—not inexplicable, not impulsive, and not rash.” He quirked a naughty smile. “I think we are concluding it was a very good idea, Miss Belvoir.”
“I am not concluding that.”
“I should have kissed you longer, then.”
He captured her with his gaze. He looked at her as if he considered rectifying the mistake then and there. A delicious shiver shook her. She could not look away from the new, sensual light in his eyes.
“You are so free of convention in your plans . . . I am almost inclined to stay in this house tonight,” he said.
“You are remarkably honest. And very wicked.”
“And you, Miss Belvoir? Are you honest enough to admit you did not mind that kiss at all?”
“I am not wicked enough, that is certain.”
“I do not believe you think it is wicked to admit it, or to enjoy it.”
No, she did not. Objectively speaking, when analyzed from a distance, she did not hold with many of the notions society held about these things. She had not been raised by people who conformed by rote.
That was why she had been such easy pickings for Nicholas. Even that experience did not persuade her that the rules of denial always made sense, however.
Right now such philosophical musings did her little good. She balanced on a precarious ledge with this man. One nudge, one encouragement, and she suspected he would not leave the house. By morning she would be seduced. Inevitably.
From the looks of Ives, magnificently.
She found her voice. “My notions about conventions notwithstanding, we would both jeopardize our positions if we indulge in passing passions.”
He gave her a very wicked look indeed. “Ah, you are a master of logic. How inconvenient. So . . . were it not for our ‘positions,’ as you put it, do you think you would enjoy being my lover?”
What a scandalous question. Yet, the daring naughtiness of it was inexplicably thrilling.
“I expect that your lovers find you at least tolerable, and I would too.”
He smiled at her prim tone. “I try to be more than tolerable.”
“How generous of you.”
“If my lovers are honest regarding what gives them pleasure, it is not difficult to be generous.”
“Honest regarding . . . So you discuss these matters? How . . . interesting.”
“I prefer a direct approach. It is mutually beneficial.”
“I am astonished that the ladies of the ton talk about such things at all, let alone directly.”
“I normally do not pursue ladies of the ton. I leave their delicate sensibilities to other men. My brothers, for example.”
“Any lady then. Any woman. Even this conversation is, to me, astonishing in its directness, and I am in no danger of one of your seductions.”
He leaned forward, engaging in the conversation more closely.
He rested his hand on the table, so close to her own that she expected him to caress her.
“If you are in no danger, it is mostly because I do not believe in seductions. That implies cajoling someone into something they believe they should not do. I prefer negotiations, and we have already begun those. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
She glanced down at the hand a mere inch from her own. She imagined those fingers moving slightly, and meandering on her skin. He was teasing her deliberately. There was nothing hypothetical about that.
“So, then, hypothetically, do you think you would enjoy being my lover, Padua?”
So it was Padua now. The first liberty taken.
“That depends on the direct negotiations, doesn’t it?”
“You are a clever woman. I like that. I assume you are not referring to settlements and property, and the other things mistresses want to discuss.”
“As I see it, those negotiations should come after the first ones.”
“Not only clever, but wise too.”
“I think—I could be wrong, but—I think you are direct for a reason. It would behoove a woman to learn why, before she filled her mind with visions of jewels and a new wardrobe.”
He laughed. “You are indeed a rarity if jewels do not turn your head and take the lead in negotiations. Or perhaps you value them more poorly than other women do.”
“I am neither wise nor clever, and I hope not rare. Only a woman’s intuition guides me. So you tell me, sir. Would I enjoy being your lover? Or are you one of those men with peculiar notions of pleasure?”
Her own directness surprised him. For an instant he looked taken aback. Good.
He recovered in a snap. Of course he did.
“Since you are well read, I will assume you know to what you refer. Honesty I promised, and honesty it will be. I do not think of myself as peculiar. I am not a bishop, that is true. However, I am also not the Marquis de Sade.”
“That is good to know. Within the hypothetical context of our conversation, that is.”
“And you, Padua? Would you object to pleasures of a more adventurous sort?”
It was her turn to be taken aback. She sipped of her wine. The deep red liquid sloshed near her nose. Clearly she had enjoyed the wine too much tonight. Look where it had gotten her. Discussing inappropriate topics with a man who was in a very real sense her enemy.
Even worse, she was thoroughly enjoying it.
It was past time to end this.
She set the glass down. She removed her hand from the table.
“Since we are playing a game, I will allow that a bishop would no doubt be quite boring. Even to one as lacking in experience as myself. But you were wrong when you said I value jewels poorly. At the moment, in my present situation, I would be foolish not to value them very highly indeed.”
He regarded her closely. She suffered it, wishing his gaze did not excite her. She could not blame the wine for all the heat and tingles.
“You seem to have opened the door to a proposition, Padua.”
“I certainly did not!”
He stood. Her heart pounded so hard she heard it in her ears. He walked over to her. She saw him as if time slowed.
He stood beside her chair. She felt him so completely he might have embraced her. Something in her—some recklessness she’d never known she harbored—wanted him to try it, to vanquish her good sense with one touch. She knew that was all it would take.
“I should leave now, lest I not leave at all.” He lifted her hand, bowed over it, and kissed it. She felt that kiss all through her body. He did not straighten completely afterward, but hovered, looking into her eyes.
“It is hell, not getting what I want, Padua. I normally do, and right now I want you fiercely.” He kissed her lips briefly, then walked away.