Chapter Twelve #3
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘When my lady’s maid turns up, I should be grateful if you would help me remove it to my carriage, where she and I shall abscond with it. Please do not tell Sophia I am responsible for the theft. I think she likes me and I would hate to ruin the start of our friendship.’
‘I will help in any way that I can.’ He paused. He should excuse himself. Conversing with her, in the moonlit hallway, unchaperoned, could spell disaster for both of them. Still his body refused to leave. ‘Are you waiting for your maid?’
‘Yes. I was reading to Lotte and then I…’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘And then I watched her sleep for a while. It has been a long time since I have had the luxury.’ She shrugged again, but this time there was no humour behind the action, only a well of sadness.
‘You must come and read to her whenever you wish,’ said Tobias, almost desperate to cheer her up in any way that he could. ‘Even if you make off with something after every visit.’
He expected her to laugh, he’d meant to be at least vaguely funny, but she only stared at him, her eyes searching his face, for what, he had no idea.
Eventually, she said, ‘Sebastian ensured that I have plenty of money. He kindly set me up for life so that I need never depend on anyone again.’
Heat swept over Tobias’ face and he was grateful for the lack of light. ‘Of course. I was only making a jest, poorly it would seem. I know you have no intention of stealing anything.’
‘No,’ she said in the same quiet tone. ‘I could tell that you were only jesting and I did not mean to make the situation serious. Only it occurred to me that you could see this chance encounter as my attempt to trap you into marriage. The Dashworth wives were telling me earlier that there have been many such sallies by women of the Ton. I only wanted to reassure you that will never be my intention.’ Her words shouldn’t hurt; he didn’t want to marry her either, but somehow hearing her emphatically lay that out did not feel good.
‘Sebastian was generous and kind and I have more than enough to live comfortably to the end of my days.’
‘That had not crossed my mind for a moment,’ he said, even as his mind roared at him to ask her why she was so against marrying him.
In case he hadn’t got the message the first two times she had told him, she was reiterating it for a third.
It did not matter; it could not matter. Yet, he did not care for the repeated assertion.
‘Excellent.’
The entranceway fell into a restless silence.
Her fingers fiddled with the fastenings of her light pelisse.
He should have moved the conversation on, should have found some banal topic to discuss, but no one had ever accused him of being a good conversationalist. ‘Although,’ he said, when he really should have stayed quiet, ‘when I suggested something similar to you at the ball, you stormed off in high dudgeon.’
Her fingers froze, the bindings twisted around them. ‘Something similar?’
‘You are telling me, are you not, that you do not wish to marry me, despite what I may have thought by finding you in my hallway.’
‘I…’
He was enjoying her look of confusion far more than he ought. Somehow, without being aware of it, he had drifted closer to her.
‘I suppose you are right,’ she said. ‘But I was only attempting to reassure you. It must be very trying to have women throwing themselves at you all the time.’ Despite the glibness of her tone, Tobias could see that her pulse was beating quickly; she was not as calm as she was pretending to be.
For some reason, that set his own heart racing, although he could not fathom why.
‘Contrary to what my sisters-in-law appear to have implied, I am not always fighting women off. I find I manage to turn them away from the desirable prospect of becoming a duchess by being myself. Most vibrant women do not want to be saddled with a surly husband.’
Her mouth twitched and he noticed she had a small scar right in the corner of her upper lip. ‘I think surly is a little harsh. I would think the words grumpy, hot-headed and obstinate would be far more appropriate.’
He rocked back on his heels. ‘Grumpy and obstinate I will accept. But hot-headed… I have never been accused of such a thing in my life. The opposite, in fact.’
She gave a very unladylike snort that was oddly endearing. ‘No one has angered you as much as myself then? Because I have seen that temper first hand and I can tell you that while you may try to appear to be the epitome of a dignified duke, that is not the impression I have of you.’
‘I see,’ he said, wondering what on earth he was doing indulging in a flirtation that would go nowhere, but was impossible to stop. ‘Well, if you…’
A large crash, followed by a muffled shout, interrupted him.
The noise came from somewhere near his study, which made no sense.
The only way to access it was from the direction he had just come and not a single soul had passed him coming the other way.
There was a quieter bang and then the house was silent once more.
Everything in Tobias stilled. The only way a noise could have come from that direction was if there was a real intruder in his home, and if that were the case, then they could all be in danger.