a tendre for men who behaved like Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans. ‘Meddling is the passion that rules your life.’
‘Meddling? I prefer to call it assisting two lonely people to find happiness.’ Lady Thorndike waved an airy hand that only served to emphasise the way her dark purple silk dress caressed her curves. He struggled to ignore the rush of hot blood that coursed through his veins. Part of Henrietta Thorndike’s arsenal was her latent sensuality, a pleasurable distraction that was apt to make men forget their train of thought.
She leant forwards and lowered her voice to a purr. ‘You must understand that our new doctor, the curate and the butcher need wives.’
‘You have forgotten the baker and the candlestick maker,’ Robert remarked drily.
‘No, the baker is happily mar—’ She stopped and her cheeks turned a deep rose before she gave a small curtsy. ‘I suppose you think the play on the rhyme amusing. And I tumbled straight into it.’
‘I rest my case. Matchmaking consumes you and, if you allow it, it will ruin you.’
She flicked her tongue over her mouth, turning her lips a cherry-ripe red. ‘Define matchmaking.’
‘Aiding, assisting or otherwise seeking the advancement of marriage,’ he said without hesitation.
‘I have other passions. It is merely a pleasant pastime, helping others out. They have a right to their chance of happiness. After all, I had mine, even though it was cut short.’ Lady Thorndike examined a bit of lace on her glove, hiding her face as she always did when she spoke about her late husband. ‘And if anyone objected, I’ve never insisted. You, for example, have made it perfectly clear that you wish to choose your own partner.’
‘If you ever tried to manipulate my private life, Lady Thorndike, it would be the end of our friendship.’
‘I know the limits.’
She stared at him defiantly, her pointed chin raised in the air and her glossy black hair quivering with indignation. Robert returned her gaze with a steady one of his own. Clearly she had chosen to forget the first ball he attended in the neighbourhood, when she had attempted to pair him off with the new Mrs Crozier.
‘All I can say is the late Sir Edmund Thorndike must have been a paragon of virtue and forbearance.’ He held up his hand, stopping her outraged squeak. Someone had to save her and everyone else from her capricious nature. One day her little schemes would ruin some innocent. ‘But we are not speaking about the past, Lady Thorndike, but the present. You are singularly unable to resist meddling in the matrimonial affairs of others. It is becoming worse by the day.’
‘I can stop any time I want,’ Henrietta replied, her face taking on a mutinous expression as she crossed her arms over her full bosom, highlighting rather than detracting from her curves.
‘Prove it.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting that the new Mrs Crozier would be better off if she remained a spinster, trimming hats and living on tea and snippets of hot buttered toast?’ Two bright spots appeared on Lady Thorndike’s cheeks and her eyes blazed sapphire. ‘She has a bright future with a husband who loves her and a more-than-respectable income.’
Robert made an irritated noise. The new Mrs Crozier’s figure proclaimed that she lived on far more than snippets of toast. ‘Anyone with a half a brain could have seen the way the wind blew when Crozier took to visiting Miss Brown on the pretext of picking up his great-aunt’s hats. You may have succeeded this time, but the next…You run the risk of destroying some innocent’s future.’
‘What are you suggesting, Mr Montemorcy?’ Her carefully arranged curls shook with anger. ‘I enjoy helping people. People need me. And this wedding breakfast will not run itself.’
At last. She’d walked straight into his trap—the reason he’d come to the wedding breakfast and engaged her in a battle of wills to begin with. ‘I am suggesting a wager to demonstrate that you are addicted to arranging others’ love lives and you have no sense of discipline in these matters.’ He watched her bridle at the words. He wondered if she knew how desirable she appeared when she was angry. Desirable but very much off limits, and Robert never mixed pleasures of the flesh with his social duty. It caused complications. ‘Unless you wish to admit defeat here and now?’
Her even white teeth worried her bottom lip. ‘You make it sound like I have no self-control.’
‘In recent months, you have lost whatever self-control you had in this matter.’ Robert leant forwards, wondering how far he dared push her. But Lady Thorndike had to agree to the wager. Without it, his entire scheme for protecting his ward would fall at the first hurdle.
‘What time frame do you suggest?’ She smoothed the deep mauve of her gown and Robert knew he had won. She’d been unable to resist the temptation and had taken the bait. ‘A wager is no good if it goes on indefinitely.’
‘Until Lady Winship’s ball in a month’s time,’ he replied.
‘A month? I don’t know whether to be flattered or amused that you do not think I can last a month. There are many other things in my life—visiting the sick, gardening and even doing needlework if I must.’
‘A month will be enough to prove my point.’
‘I will be delighted to prove you wrong.’ Henrietta tapped her fan against his arm. ‘And when I do, you will have to allow me to host a picnic at the excavations. And for added sweetness, the merest of trifles—you will dance a polka with me at the ball.’
Robert pressed his lips together—how had this happened? Despite all his precautions, Lady Thorndike had defined unacceptable terms. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘I know. Everyone in the Tyne Valley knows.’ She raised up on her toes and her eyes became the colour of a Northumbrian summer’s morning. ‘You avoided the dancing classes I set up for the village, pleading pressures of work. We were several men short. Even old Mr Everley came despite his aches and pains. The entire village’s standard of dancing has been improved. All except yours.’
‘It is good to know fewer bruised toes will happen at the ball thanks to your valiant efforts.’
‘Your dancing will be a public declaration that I’m correct and you utterly misjudged the situation.’ Her eyes took on a wicked glint. ‘You are lucky that I am not insisting on you joining the next class.’
‘And don’t you want to know your forfeit, the consequences of failure?’
She gave a little deprecating laugh and he knew he had trapped her. Henrietta Thorndike’s overweening confidence would be her undoing. He’d give her two days, a week at most, before she succumbed to temptation. But with the forfeit he had in mind, either way, his ward’s reputation would be safe. ‘I’m going to win, but what do you want, Mr Montemorcy, if I display a woeful lack of self-control?’
Robert forced his voice to be restrained, soothing. ‘If you fail to do this, for the next six months you will have to announce whenever you arrive at a social gathering that you are a habitual matchmaker. You will also give up organising any social event for the period.’
The colour drained from her face. ‘And what will I be doing with myself? I like to keep busy!’
‘You can
