pacing again, except now it was more of a wild-cat lope than a wolfish fury as he worked himself up about her shortcomings instead of Rich’s plight. ‘We’re not in the least alike, you and I, not in the least similar in any way,’ he accused as he kicked a skewed edging tile, then had to pretend it didn’t hurt as it proved to be a lot more fixed in place than it looked.
‘Well,’ she said sarcastically and folded her arms to stop herself going up to him and holding on to halt his frustrated activity, ‘we certainly have a foul temper in common, if nothing else.’
‘I’ve enough to make me foul tempered; you could infuriate a whole regiment without even pausing for breath.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ she argued for the sake of arguing as much as to prove a point now. ‘Even I can’t shout loudly enough to make that many bone-headed, born-stupid, stubborn-as-rock men hear me all at once.’
‘Ah, but they’d hush long enough to listen to the likes of you, Persephone,’ he told her, as if saying her name softly like that ought to cancel out his unflattering opinion of her up until now.
‘Why?’ she demanded, uncrossing her arms so she could fist her hands and pretend he was wrong.
‘Because you’re as lovely as half-a-dozen goddesses put together,’ he told her with a wry grin that acknowledged it was a silly thing to say and almost made her long to melt into the sort of weak-kneed female he obviously admired.
‘With a dozen fists to hit you with and as many feet to kick you, I think I could support being that lovely,’ she said and tried not to laugh at the very idea of it.
‘You’d fall over,’ he informed her solemnly. Oh, the temptation of him as he stood there, suddenly as light-hearted and heart-breakingly handsome as Mother Nature had intended him to be.
‘True, but at least I’d do it happily, knowing you were sure to be hurting far more than I was,’ she said, determined not to be charmed into a quieter, more accepting frame of mind.
‘I bet you were a devilish little girl, ready to lash out at anyone who told you not to do something merely because you were born a girl,’ he said reflectively.
If he but knew it, he was in danger of succeeding by using his acute mind to read her true character where all his raging and charming and unreasonableness had failed to persuade her. Mainly because he was right, she told herself. His knowing all her frustrations at being born a girl in a world dominated by men, when every time they met they quarrelled and struck sparks off each other, felt oddly disarming.
‘Please don’t think me so changed I won’t do it again, Lord Calvercombe,’ she told him rather half-heartedly.
‘Yet it would have been such a shame if you had been born one of us unsatisfactory males instead of a goddess-like female, Miss Seaborne, for then I would be denied the sheer pleasure of looking at you,’ he told her as if it were no more than passing the time of day.
‘I’m not a cold collection of limbs and good enough features to be gawped at like yonder statue, my lord. I am a human being with all the faults and failures and hopes and dreams we earthly creatures are subject to.’
‘But it doesn’t hurt the rest of us fallible beings that you’re a sheer pleasure to look upon, Miss Persephone Seaborne,’ he informed her quietly and strode dangerously close again, to look down at her as if he’d find out all the secrets of her inner soul she’d managed to bury deep inside.
‘And if I was to be as rude and bold as you are, I’d have to admit you’re no hardship to behold yourself, Alexander Forthin,’ she countered, meeting his disconcerting gaze as if it were normal for a lady to compliment a gentleman.
For a moment he looked shocked, then almost flattered, before his insecurity about his scarred face and marred eye surfaced and he merely looked offended—as if she were mocking him for being less handsome, at least in his own eyes, than he’d been once upon a time.
‘I do remember you from before, you know,’ she said softly and, as he appeared to want to step back, she took a step nearer so she could meet his eyes to show him she meant what she said. ‘You were handsome and arrogant and proud as sin back then, when Rich and Jack left Eton for Oxford and you got your commission and a scarlet coat to dazzle schoolgirls like me out of the few wits I had left me. To my mind you’re a great deal better looking now than you were back then and considerably less vain.’
‘Then you’re still dazzled?’ he asked as if that was all that mattered to him in her shaming admission that she’d once cherished a fiery and fearsome crush for him, even though she’d only set eyes on him once or twice when she was supposed to be minding her lessons.
‘I’m no longer a schoolgirl who can be easily enchanted by a devil-may-care manner and a pair of knowing blue eyes, Lord Calvercombe,’ she claimed primly, but inside she wasn’t quite so sure.
‘If you first set eyes on me when I was still a boy straight out of school, I doubt they were as knowing as either of us thought at the time,’ he admitted and disarmed her all over again.
‘Whatever you knew, it was a lot more than I did,’ she admitted. Since he was about the same age as Jack and therefore eight or so years older than herself, that was a safe enough bet at least.
‘Not that you would ever have admitted it.’
‘No, not then,’ she acknowledged.
‘Or now,’ he said flatly, and since she’d dug that trap for herself, she supposed she couldn’t blame him for using it.
‘Nine or ten years have gone past since we first set eyes on each other and I’ve learnt a lot in the meantime, Lord Calvercombe.’
‘Then you’re prepared to rashly lay claim to having become a woman of the world since then, are you, Persephone? I suppose you are an experienced female with three, maybe even four Seasons at your back by now and still no husband to make them into a triumph,’ he observed, and she wasn’t going to admit the cutting edge of that conclusion, coming from him instead of her few known and familiar enemies among the ton as it did.
She knew he was using temper to set her at a distance, but it hurt her far more acutely than it should. He’d slyly trailed the outrageous possibility she might have become worldlier than a respectable young lady should be, as well as reminding her the world might one day mock her looks and birth and comfortable marriage portion if she refused to wed. He deserved to have his face slapped before she flounced away, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
‘Only three Seasons actually, my lord, and that really doesn’t mean I’m either desperate for a lover or considered to be at my last prayers quite yet. I happen to be very particular about the man I might one day decide to marry.’
‘After you’ve had your pick of the bachelors to flirt and test and measure against some impossible ideal of perfection, I suppose? Please don’t tell me how he must be, let me guess. The poor man will have to be rich if he’s to afford you,’ he said as if about to count off on his fingers all the things she must demand in a husband, when all she really wanted was to love passionately and be loved in return one day or not wed at all. ‘Then there’s all that ducal blood flowing proud in your veins to measure up to. I doubt some ancient old noble will do for such a lovely and fastidious young lady as you, either, so he must be smoothly god-like and haughty as a Roman senator with all except his lady. He’d better be a fine horseman, or strive to become one,
