Chapter Nine #2
She resumed her pleas, unflapped by his barb.
‘This masquerade ball is the best thing that could have happened to us, my lord, and I have already secured you an invitation. It is an exquisite opportunity for you to not only present yourself and mix with all of the most important people of the ton, but it will also provide you with some anonymity as you build back your…confidence in social settings.’ Miss Granger smiled at him.
Smiled. Her self-assurance grated his nerves.
‘Thank you for that insult,’ he grumbled as he grabbed the various notes and letters from his silver salver he needed to respond to and sat down in his desk chair again with a thud.
Perhaps he did not like this game between them after all. He appeared to be losing, and he did not like to lose. Not one bit. He felt like pouting, like Nicholas.
She tilted her pert little chin, sending her small straight nose higher in the air and her soft curls dancing along her cheek bones and neck.
A challenge was coming. He had seen this maneuver more than once in the handful of days they had known each other.
‘Then do you wish to imply you enjoy social settings and mixing with those you do not know, and that you are adept in such gatherings?’ Her blue eyes twinkled and there was mirth in the gentle curve of her mouth.
He sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Of course not. I despise all those things.’
She studied him quietly and a tingle of warning went up his limbs.
‘Did you always?’ she asked. Her words landed like tiny stinging nettles against his skin, and the amusement of but a moment before fell away.
He said nothing but began sorting his correspondence into neat orderly piles, just the way he liked things. Ever since Miss Ophelia Granger had come into his life, there had been disruption and disorder to his world. He didn’t like it. He stilled.
Was it too late to fire her? To sever this business arrangement of theirs?
His gaze flicked to the portrait of his mother.
Ah, hell.
He needed to fulfill his damned duty by taking on a wife and having an heir.
Otherwise, who knew what would become of his title, future or his family estates.
He also couldn’t remain a hermit for the rest of his life.
At least not without feeling like a cad who had wasted the precious opportunities and time life had given him, especially when he knew men who had wanted to live but had their lives cut far too short.
Miss Granger sat down in the chair opposite him again and waited. The woman could outwait anyone. His mother would have been impressed. She had also been gifted in such a way. After he’d finished sorting all the papers in front of him, he relented.
‘No, I have not always been this way.’
Still, she waited. He resisted the urge to curse aloud in frustration. He finally relented and answered.
‘I used to enjoy balls and driving my barouche with my betrothed during the Fashionable Hour, but that was before my time as a soldier and before I lost…Rebecca.’ There, he had said her name aloud.
‘After she ended our engagement,’ he continued, ‘I simply had no taste for navigating Society. Quite the opposite really. I had no stomach for such frivolities. It did not mean anything to me anymore.’
He left out that he’d been heartbroken and broken in many other ways, too.
He didn’t wish to tell her that. Not yet.
Most likely she would guess anyway. Miss Granger was observant, painfully so.
The way her gaze softened as he spoke made him uneasy.
He didn’t want her sympathy. It made him uncomfortable.
In fact, he didn’t want her to care about him at all.
‘So, what has changed now? I know you’ve mentioned you want to marry and sire an heir to secure the future of the family name, but what else?
A relative, even a distant one, could surely continue the family legacy, if that was your sole endeavor.
You seem very content in your bachelorhood and living this rather simple lifestyle.
What has made you suddenly want to disrupt it now? ’
Fear of being alone.
The answer startled him. It shot into his mind unbidden and without hesitation. Did he really fear being alone? He was alone most of the time. Why did it bother him now? He didn’t know how to answer, but he knew he had to. There was no moving on with Miss Granger. There was simply giving in.
But she had turned the tables on him by asking him such intimate questions, and so he would do the same to her.
‘And what of you, Miss Granger? What makes you want to be a matchmaker, especially when you have not been matched or married yourself? I know you’ve said you have made successful matches before, but how does one do that without having made one for themselves?
’ He leaned back, allowing the cool leather of his chair to ease into the fabric of his jacket.
He found he wanted more than anything to know the answer.
‘The answer is simple. I’m good at it. And making people happy…
helping them find the man or woman of their dreams and securing a beautiful life together brings me so much joy,’ she replied.
‘I did not have parents who cared for one another in that way, but if I can give that security and happiness to others, then it feels like I am rewriting my past. As if for every match, I can override an unhappiness.’ Her smile was beautiful, but pain resided there, hidden in her far too bright smile and shining eyes.
My God.
How he wanted to reach out and touch her.
Tell her he understood every word of what she was saying down to the marrow of his bones.
For while he wasn’t trying to overwrite his parents’ unhappiness or lackluster marriage, he was trying to make amends to the families of the men he’d lost by sending them funds and kindnesses of his own each month.
He, too, held his pain very close; so close that some days he wondered what he would do without it.
It was so familiar…almost comfortable in the way it rested on his chest like a weight.
What would he even do if it was lighter? If it wasn’t there. Would he have any purpose at all?
He swallowed hard and blinked away his own thoughts, wanting to focus on her.
‘That is a kind endeavor, Miss Granger,’ he finally said, his voice raspy and thick with the emotion tightening his body as he fought against the pull of attraction he felt for her.
He needed a wife of convenience, not her.
He simply could not afford to love anyone again.
He could not take the risk or the chance of such a loss recurring.
And she was so…so everything his heart desired.
If he loved her and lost her, he would lose himself.
He would never be able to come back up for air.
He tore his gaze away and rested his hands in his lap under the desk, willing himself to stay seated, remain still and to let this desire for her fade away.
It would eventually fade away if he waited long enough. It would. He was sure of it.
‘And I do want to be married and have a family of my own one day. To find the prince of my dreams that I have always imagined since I was a girl. A man who would love me for me and make my life a happy one,’ she continued shifting in her chair.
‘A palm reader even told me once that such a man is out there for me. I must just allow it to be the right time to find him.’
He risked looking at her as he was desperate to know what kind of man she longed for. Who would Miss Granger see as her prince?
Could it be him?
He chided himself. Fool. It would never be him, and he didn’t want it to be.
He wanted a homely bride who was loyal and faithful and fruitful.
That would be more than enough. He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
‘A prince from a palm reader?’ He was as flummoxed as he was spellbound.
She was a grown woman but still believed in such fancies.
He wasn’t sure if he was envious of her ability to believe in such ridiculous things or if he despised her for it.
‘Yes, and I know he will come,’ she replied with certainty.
‘But I am not looking for him right now,’ she added, smiling at him.
‘I want to focus all my attentions on starting my matchmaking business. I am devoted to its success and yours. Once I have secured a match for you, I hope to earn the trust of other clients and gain enough business to stay here in London past the New Year permanently. Then, I can be independent and able to care for myself and my future.’
When she said such things, he wanted desperately to believe her.
He knew what it was like to be caught up in hopes and dreams for the future.
He had been that way once with Rebecca. ‘Then I hope your wish comes true, Miss Granger. I am sure your business will bloom, and when you are ready, you will find this prince of yours.’
Agh. Why had he said that?
He didn’t really believe it. While she was pretty, kind and affable, he could not think of a single man in Society who would be this prince of hers or was worthy of being her match.
If anything, he was quite certain of the opposite. ‘But you are young, and inexperienced, if I may say so. Do you know the ways of the men of the ton?’
Someone needed to warn her, if she didn’t. No stuffy aristocrat who married her would allow her to continue with this business of hers either, and the sooner she accepted that the better. While he would not care a whit, as he had no standing to lose, another man would.
‘Aren’t they like the ways of all other men?’ she asked, picking at the edge of one of her gloves.
‘Yes, and no. I generally find they are worse than the average man as they feel entitled. They are also selfish and somewhat careless with beautiful things.’ He couldn’t bear to tell her about how they would feel about her business. Not yet.
‘But you are a man of the ton.’