when you hate it so?”
Margaret sniffed, her hair pins itching once more. “I don’t know what you could mean,” she said untruthfully. How had he known?
“You’ve tugged on your bonnet strings five times in this conversation already. Why wear one, if it’s so uncomfortable? Have you any reason for it, other than that it is what everyone else does?”
“I brown terribly in the sunlight. I’ll develop freckles.”
“Oh, no. That sounds awful.” He spoke with exaggerated solicitude, but he leaned down from his horse until his nose was a bare foot from hers. “Freckles. And what do those dastardly spots portend? Are freckled people thrown in prison? Pilloried? Covered in tar and sprinkled with tiny little down feathers?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He moved his hand in a lazy circle, ending with it stretched towards her, palm out. As if to say, explain why.
“Pale skin—a white complexion—is superior,” Margaret said. “I don’t know why I am defending a proposition everyone knows to be true.”
“Because I don’t know it.” Mr. Turner slid his finger under her chin. “Yet another reason why I am glad I am not a gentleman. Do you know why my peers want their brides to have pale skin?”
She was all too aware of the golden glow of vitality emanating from him. She could feel the warmth in his finger. She shouldn’t encourage him. Still, the word slipped out. “Why?”
“They want a woman who is a canvas, white and empty. Standing still, existing for no other purpose than to serve as a mute object onto which they can paint their own hopes and desires. They want their brides veiled. They want a demure, blank space they can fill with whatever they desire.”
He tipped her chin up, and the afternoon sunlight spilled over the rim of her bonnet, touching her face with warmth.
“No.” Margaret wished she could snatch that wavering syllable back. But what he said was too true to be borne, and nobody knew it better than she. Her own wants and desires had been insignificant. She’d been engaged to her brother’s friend before her second season had been halfway over. She’d been a pale, insipid nothing, a collection of rites of etiquette and rules of precedent squashed into womanly form and given a dowry.
His voice was low. “Damn their bonnets. Damn their rules.”
“What do you want?” Her hands were shaking. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Miss Lowell, you magnificent creature, I want you to paint your own canvas. I want you to unveil yourself.” He raised his hand to her cheek and traced the line of warm sunshine down her jaw. That faint caress was hotter and more dizzying than the relentless sun overhead. She stood straight, not letting herself respond, hoping that her cheeks wouldn’t flush.
You matter. You are important. He was doing it again, but this time, he was doing it to her. He was subverting some deep part of her as easily as he’d won over Mrs. Benedict. What he’d whispered seemed more intimate than the touch of his glove against her cheek. It wasn’t fair that this man, this one man who had utterly destroyed her, would be the one to pick her deepest desire out of the maelstrom of her wants.
“Am I asking so much, then? I only want you to think of yourself.”
“That’s sophistry. You know you have your sights set on a great deal more.”
He smiled in wry acquiescence. “For now, Miss Lowell, I’d be happy with nothing more from you than a little defiance.”
She looked up into his dark eyes. A little defiance, he called it. Just a little defiance, to believe that she mattered.
But she needed more than a little defiance to call upon now. She couldn’t let this continue. A few more days of this, and he might begin to convince her of his sincerity. When he looked at her with that fierce light in his eyes, she could almost feel the world bending about him. She could feel herself drifting to land at his feet, ready to do his bidding. If he continued to pay her those extravagant compliments, she might actually start to believe him.
She took his hand where it touched her cheek and moved it firmly to rest against the buff fabric of his breeches.
“Mr. Turner, you fail to understand.”
He lifted one eyebrow, and Margaret stood up straight and glared at him. “I’m not a cat. I’m not a canvas. And I’m certainly not about to become an enterprise for you to cosset and charm into docility. You want a little defiance?”
His head cocked at an angle, as if he couldn’t believe the words she was saying.
“Good,” she said. “Then you may try this: leave me alone. For good. Don’t talk to me. Don’t browbeat me. And for God’s sake, don’t try to seduce me.”
He looked at her quizzically. For a second, she thought she’d pushed him too far. She was sure that his pleasant manner would evaporate into scorn. That he would force that kiss on her, no matter what he’d said before.
Instead, he sat back on his horse, touched his hat and disappeared down the track.
IT HAD BEEN MORE than a week since Ash had been sent on his way, but Miss Lowell was never far from his thoughts—or indeed, from his person. Right now, in fact, she was a mere two rooms away. He could sense her presence, tantalizingly close.
“No. Keep your elbow tucked close to your side.” His brother’s instruction wafted down from the hall, both enticing and damnably irritating.
Ash stared at the pages in front of him, more determined than ever to concentrate on the letters before him and to block out the vision that came to mind with those words. He couldn’t see Mark, but his voice carried. Ash could just imagine what was happening at that moment.
“Like this?” Miss Lowell’s response.
“Yes, better. Now bring it up. Quickly, now.”
Ash envisioned his brother standing in the parlor. He could stand behind Miss Lowell, his fingers wrapping about her hand. Sometimes, he thought that Miss Lowell had accepted Mark’s offer to teach her to defend against a man just to drive Ash mad. He was certain Mark had offered with that exact end in mind.
Brothers. Ash shook his head.
Ash wished he’d had the bright idea to teach Miss Lowell how to hit a man. There were so many opportunities for touching. But then, that was why she would never have accepted. Not from him. Not yet, at least. Everything worth having, he reminded himself, was worth waiting for. Every day that passed in which he did not importune her worked in his favor. She would learn that he could be trusted, that he wasn’t going to harm her. That wariness would eventually leave her eyes. Patience won all battles, revealed all secrets. If he could figure out how to reach her once…
Instead, Mark was the one reaching her. Or, rather, being Mark—he was not reaching her at all.
Because Mark wouldn’t take advantage of any of those delightful opportunities to fold his hands around hers. Ash had purposefully walked by the parlor during Mark’s lessons several times this past week. He’d walked as if he hadn’t cared one whit about what his brother was doing with Miss Lowell.
