Chapter Six #2
‘You are only irritated you did not think of this before I did,’ the Marquess of Laidley said, picking up a canvas. ‘What do you think—a small one for my entrant into the competition, or do you think I should be bolder?’
‘You? Bolder? I do not think that even possible!’
It was wrong, Montague knew, to gain such a thrill from provoking the fiery Miss Oliver. But then, if it was so wrong, why did it feel so right?
‘I do not consider myself a bold man,’ Montague said conversationally, as though they were not having a blazing row in public. ‘In fact, I would say on the contrary—’
‘Bold men proposition women in the street! They attempt to make them dance with them! They follow them to beaches, to art galleries, they provoke them into wagers that could end in matrimony. And—’ Miss Oliver hissed like a malediction, ‘—they purposefully buy up all said woman’s preferred art supplies! ’
Montague could not help but grin. Well, when it was put like that, it was bold, wasn’t it?
‘There is no law against purchasing paint,’ he pointed out, placing the canvas down. ‘Yes, I think I will challenge myself a little further. Perhaps a larger canvas…’
‘No law against…? There should be,’ Miss Oliver said grimly, snatching the second canvas he had just picked up from his hands. ‘And don’t be ridiculous, the proportions are all wrong.’
Montague raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you assisting me, Miss Oliver? Should there not be a rule against gaining any sort of assistance—in fact, now I come to think about it, you posited such a thing when we met in Shirley Street Art Gallery.’
‘We did not meet there!’
‘I do declare we did.’ A reasonable point, he thought.
Mrs Gower and Mr Haversham were staring at them from across the shop, but had wisely decided to stay back. Miss Oliver looked as though she could explode at any moment.
She was intoxicating.
‘You know what I mean,’ snapped Miss Oliver. ‘We did not arrange to meet there. We just…met there.’
‘As we have just met here,’ Montague said calmly, enjoying the fury in her face more and more with each passing minute. ‘I would say we have to stop meeting like this, Miss Oliver, but I must admit, I am enjoying it.’
The flattery poured off his tongue like honey, well-practised as he was in the art of delighting ladies…but Montague discovered to his delight he was genuinely relishing it.
Why was this firecracker just so marvellous? Why did he gain so much pleasure, for pleasure it was, in infuriating her?
Miss Oliver narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. The only trouble was, this rather brought Montague’s attention to that slender waist and the lovely way her empire line gown could not entirely hide the swell of her hips.
When she was his wife, Montague thought dreamily, he was going to enjoy those hips.
‘You treat competition as…well, as a sort of romance,’ Miss Oliver said stiffly. ‘And vice versa. You treat romance as though it were some competition!’
Her remark startled Montague. Not just that she had said it, but how astonishingly accurate she was.
He had never noticed that before. But then, he had never fallen in love before. Lust, certainly, but love was quite another matter indeed.
But she was quite correct. The few times Montague had felt a thrill further than one’s base desires, it had been in argument, in debate.
In competition, as she described it. When one’s blood had risen through debate and disagreement, surely it was only a short step towards another activity that could boil one’s blood?
Montague tried to speak, but his throat was inexplicably dry. ‘I… I…’
‘But you have met your match with me, my lord,’ Miss Oliver said haughtily, drawing herself up as though she had won an argument, and had not completely distracted her combatant with her splendid figure or her painfully accurate insight into his character.
Montague was quite at a loss. He really should not be arguing with her but if he was going to do so, he should be winning.
After all, he had only come here in the first place in the hope of encountering her. A day without Miss Oliver, he was fast discovering, was a day he could not enjoy.
Besides, it had to be better standing here, arguing with Miss Oliver in public, than returning to his townhouse and being faced once again with the very tangible reminder he was now the guardian of a child who reminded him every moment of his hated cousin.
‘Well? What is your response?’ asked Miss Oliver tartly.
Montague tried to smile, but his mind had become distracted by thoughts of the child who now depended on him. Drat, he would have to find a tutor for the boy—or a mother, which brought him rather nicely back to the resplendent woman before him.
‘You are the most irritating man I have ever met, you know,’ Miss Oliver said as she glared at him.
‘That insult would have far greater weight if I thought you had a wide acquaintance,’ Montague said, attempting to seep arrogance back into his voice.
He took a tube of the cerulean paint that he had just purchased from Mr Haversham out of his breeches pocket. It helped, sometimes, to have something to hold while he was being berated by a woman—though now he came to think of it, he could not recall enjoying such a berating in his whole life.
‘I don’t understand why you even want to win this bet of ours,’ Miss Oliver said darkly. ‘After all, you only win me! Why on earth would you want to marry me? Do you need a wife?’
Yes, was the answer to that question, but even Montague could tell, in the haze of her scent, that it would be a mistake to admit to such.
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. Blast!
‘Why?’ It was curiosity on her face, and not anger, then as she examined him. ‘Oh, I suppose all titled nobles want heirs, but why now? Why me?’
Montague opened his mouth but no words came out.
What could he say? He could hardly reveal John’s existence, although he expected the town’s gossips to do so any day now. His original plan of finding a simple young miss who could give him three sons felt rather pathetic now he was standing in the presence of such a woman.
‘Have you nothing to say?’ Miss Oliver said suspiciously. ‘Or are you concocting another nonsensical statement designed purely to rile me?’
‘I would very much like to rile you, Miss Oliver,’ Montague found himself saying in a low voice, intended only for the lady herself. ‘But I would not wish to do so with words.’
It was absolutely the wrong thing to say.
Gentlemen, Montague reminded himself, should not quiz ladies, proper ladies, with such lewd remarks.
They were for thinking only, not speaking.
Any well-bred and well-born lady such as Miss Calliope Oliver would understandably be horrified by such things and quite firmly decline to converse with him again.
It came therefore as a great surprise to Montague that Miss Oliver coloured, but stepped bizarrely closer to him and even more astonishingly, lowered her voice.