Blame It on the Duke(14)
Well, wasn’t she? She risked a sideways glance.
No one should have a jaw so chiseled or eyes so silver. It made her almost angry how handsome he was.
His appearance is the only agreeable thing about him, and he can’t take credit for what God bestowed.
Be rid of him quickly and thoroughly.
She must marshal her thoughts to order. Lead the charge.
Hunt the hunter.
“Now then, Dimples,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me the real reason you don’t wish to marry.”
Had he called her Dimples? He was definitely going down in flames.
She flipped through her mental list of peer-dispersing tactics, hitting upon one that, while not foolproof, could be effective in this situation.
“It’s not that I don’t wish to marry, Lord Hatherly,” she said. “I don’t wish to marry you. There’s a difference. My affections are . . . promised elsewhere.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A secret engagement?”
“Papa will cut me off if we marry, but the gentleman cares nothing for my fortune. He’s willing to marry me regardless of my prospects.”
“What’s his name?”
Alice searched her mind. “Darcy.” Oh, that was brilliant. Use a character from one of her favorite novels. But it had been the first name to come to mind.
“Darcy?”
“Professor Darcy. He’s handsome and cultured, and a perfect gentleman, though he has no title save that of professor. He wears sensible waistcoats, never red silk or patterned. He smokes a pipe after a meal, and he loves cats. Adores them. He allows my pet cat Kali to climb all over him.” You’re rambling, Alice. Wind it up now. “When we are married we will read together of an evening before the fire.”
“What a charming picture—the professor and his young lady. Reading side by side, she, ignoring the foul odor of pipe tobacco, brushes cat hair from his sensible waistcoat. He proclaims that she has bewitched him, body and soul.”
Alice jumped. Had he truly seen through her story so easily?
And what was even more surprising, had he read the book?
Hatherly’s smile was smug and overly confident. “There’s only one problem with your Professor Darcy. He doesn’t exist.”
“He exists!” Well, he existed in her imagination. He was the kind, scholarly gentleman she dreamt of finding when she returned from India. Though he’d have to be at least a baronet to satisfy Mama.
“Miss Tombs.” He shook his head. “What’s gotten into you? I know a fake fictitious fiancé when I hear of one. Men like your Professor Darcy simply don’t exist, and women’s boudoir novels have done womankind a grave disservice by suggesting that they do. You can’t have both the sophisticated gentleman of experience and the domesticated, solicitous spouse wrapped in one ardent package.”
“Fine. You’ve caught me out, Lord Hatherly.” She infused her voice with the bitterness she felt when she thought of her lost voyage to India. “If I were plain, I wouldn’t be expected to fetch such a prize as you, you know. In some cultures I’d be considered downright unsightly. The Aegean countries, for example, would avoid my light greenish-blue eyes for fear they held the curse of the devil.”
He laughed. “If you wish to avoid marriage, perhaps you should move to Greece.”
“I can easily see how you and my father will benefit from our match. He gains your aristocratic business connections, and you keep Sunderland House. What I fail to see is how I’m to profit by it.”
“I should think that’s obvious. You’ll be the Duchess of Barrington someday. A member of an elite group of the most privileged ladies in England.”
“My mother and father are hungry for the title, not I. No one seems to care what I want.”
“What do you want? Perhaps I can give it to you.” His voice dropped so low that her throat buzzed in response. “If you’ll allow me to try.”
She wanted to follow the plan and board her father’s merchant ship bound for Calcutta in July, with the Kama Sutra and her grandfather’s other manuscripts safe in her trunks.
India! She could already see it in her mind’s eye: a riot of orange and red silks, domed temples glinting in the sun, heat shimmering from the streets, the fragrant scent of saffron.
Only she wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not with Fred married and staying in France.
She couldn’t tell Lord Hatherly about her shattered dreams.
He’d only give that mocking laugh and smile his smug smile.
Brush her dreams aside like castles made of sand instead of a solid bulwark she’d built stone by stone, word by word.
Women were mere amusements to him. He’d probably never even considered they might want something other than pleasing a man.