“None!”
“None? Bit of a tall order, there, Gwen. Aristocracy lacks for albinos.”
“I’ve decided not to marry.” She waited for his reaction. He merely lifted a brow. More firmly, she restated it: “I’m not going to marry. I’ve decided it. I’m going to do—more interesting things.”
“God knows there are several,” he said easily. “Such as?”
“Gardening,” she said.
He sighed. “Oh, Gwen.” Like a master despairing of his pupil.
“What? What’s so wrong with that? I’ve always wished to study botany. I’ll travel to collect strange plants, just as Linnaeus did—to the Hanging Gardens! To all manner of foreign places, as you do!”
“As I do?” He laughed. “You do realize there are no couturiers in most of the ports I visit? And flowers are not always pretty. Some of them try to eat you.”
“I don’t even favor flowers,” she said. “I don’t have an interest in little box gardens, Alex; I am thinking of landscapes. I have a talent for designing them, I think—you should see Heaton Dale at present; it’s brilliant! Why—”
She fell abruptly silent. He was looking at her with an expression of mild, tolerant incredulity.
“Well,” she said. “The point is, I’m done with the conventional routine.”
His head tilted just a fraction. “So. No need to make that list, then. Yes?”
“Exactly right,” she said encouragingly. “You may keep doing absolutely”—she flapped her hand—“nothing. It quite suits you! In regard to me, that is. Of course you do a great deal, generally speaking.”
“I see,” he murmured. “Well, that’s a relief. I must say, I wasn’t relishing playing the matchmaker.” After a brief pause, and another curious inspection of her, he added, “The day has been inordinately taxing, so I suppose I should leave you to rest. Let’s revisit this conversation another time, shall we?”
Her stomach sank. She’d been feeling encouraged, but this last remark did not bode well at all. “No,” she said. “I told you to keep doing what you always do! And may I remind you, only once in a year do you make plans to converse with me. Otherwise, we meet only by accident, generally at the holidays, and we exchange nothing so substantial as might be counted conversation!”
His answering smile was benign. Not a trace of mockery! “True enough, Gwen. I will bid you good afternoon, now.” And then—horror of horrors—he bowed to her.
Dear God! There: she had taken the Lord’s name in vain, and the occasion well deserved it. Alex was playing the gentleman.
He did not believe her in the least. He still planned to make that list.
It could not stand.
As he turned for the door, she said sharply, “Alex, I mean it. I am not joking.”
He glanced back over his shoulder as he laid his hand to the door latch. “Splendid,” he said mildly. “Be as wild as you like. God knows I’m no advocate for the straight and narrow. Now, if you don’t mind, I really must be—”
“Could I go to Paris with you, then?”
Slowly he turned back, his expression frozen into comical dismay. “Paris,” he said. “With me. Are you serious?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “You could show me the sights!”
His laughter sounded openly disbelieving now. “Show you the sights. Take you on a tour of the Louvre, do you mean? Oh, wouldn’t that be smashing. Perhaps we could have a tea party in the Tuileries afterward, and press flowers into our scrapbooks.”
She pulled a face. “The Tuileries is nothing original, and museums aren’t my aim. That is—I want to give Pennington what-for! And after that, well, I’ve seen all the proper bits already. The Opera, the Exhibit, that new tower they put up—it sways in the wind, utterly ghastly. But I didn’t see any of the fun bits. The bits that proper girls never see!”
His hand slipped away from the door. “You’re a heathen,” he said. “The Eiffel Tower’s a miracle of engineering. As for the rest—I’ve no idea what bits you mean. The fish market, say? The workhouses?”
“The wicked places! The Bal Bullier, the Moulin Rouge, the places where ladies dance the cancan all night—”
He choked. “Italy, Gwen. I suggest you go there. Ever so much more fun. Pesto, Rome, the Medicis—who can resist? You can purchase a fine poison ring, propose a swap with the viscount.”
“But he cannot have gotten to Italy yet,” she said patiently. “Paris will be his first stop if he’s going anywhere on the Continent. And I already explained that I must get the ring back.”