“You did! Didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t asking you to marry me,” he said vehemently. “Do you think me a fool?”
Cosy was flabbergasted. “Well, I don’t know you very well, do I?” she retorted.
His eyes narrowed. “You may be a little piece of heaven, my girl, but I am not so bowled over by your beautiful eyes that I forget myself!” he said angrily. “I am a gentleman. Gentlemen don’t marry women like you. It would be a highly reprehensible connection, degrading to us both. I’d be a laughingstock. My career in Parliament would be over. I couldn’t very well present you to my family and friends, now, could I?”
“Oh!” was all she could say.
“Let there be no pretense between us, madam,” he said. “You know perfectly well I was asking you to be my mistress. Don’t become the outraged innocent with me!” he went on as Cosy choked on her own fury. “I am prepared to offer you a thousand pounds if you will come away with me tomorrow. The rest can be negotiated when we get to London. We’ll be drawing up papers, of course. You can have an attorney, if you like.”
“Papers! Attorney!” she spat.
“Of course. I suppose in Ireland things are not so civilized?”
Cosy pulled herself together. He had reminded her that she represented Ireland in this sordid little conflict. She must not allow him to get the better of her. “No, indeed,” she said coldly. “We’re savages!”
He shook his head. “I suspected as much. Rest assured, we will have a legally binding contract, Miss Cosy. It is as much for your protection as it is for mine. If I should fail to meet my obligations, you will have recourse under the law. And vice versa.”
“How nice for us! How civilized!”
“Yes. You will come to London with me for a thousand pounds.”
It was not a question. The Englishman really assumed that, for a mere thousand pounds, she would gladly leave her home and her family to become nothing more than his whore. He might say “mistress,” but that was just perfume. Nothing could disguise the stench.
For this insult, he deserved to suffer the worst humiliation of his life.
“Not so fast there, darling,” she said sweetly, her pleasant voice masking her anger. “I’ll have to see the goods first, you understand. How do I know you’re bona fide?”
Secretly, Benedict was disappointed by her cold, calculated response to his offer, but, without a change of expression, he reached inside his coat for his wallet. “I’m glad you mean to be reasonable, my dear. I am not entertained in the least by feminine hysterics. It is essentially a business arrangement, and I prefer to conduct my business without emotion.”
He took out a thousand pound note.
Cosy looked at it, her fury hardening like hot steel plunged into icy water. “That is not what I meant, sir,” she said, smiling angelically.
“Naturally, I am not adverse to establishing my good faith,” he said. “Forgive me! I do not have the pleasure of understanding you. What is it you want of me? As fetching as you are, Miss Cosy, you can not expect to receive a larger sum.”
“Money’s a fine thing, sir,” she observed, “but I’ll not be shagging your wallet, now, will I? No, ’tis your naked body I’ll be laboring like a slave to please. I’d be a fool, wouldn’t I, if I didn’t take a long, hard look at your dangler before I commit myself to such an arrangement?”
The crudity of her language shocked him. “You certainly are a soldier’s daughter!”
“Did you mistake me for a fine lady?” she returned coolly. “I wouldn’t buy a horse without looking it in the mouth, and I won’t take a man to my bed unless he passes inspection.”
“You expect me to—to undress?” he said incredulously. “Here in the kitchen?”
“It’s the warmest spot in the house,” she pointed out. “We could even do the deed here, if you like,” she added, her sweet, lazy smile at odds with the breathtaking naughtiness of what she was suggesting. “Sure! We’ll pile the cushions on the floor, and you can mount me any way you please, for I’m not at all particular, not when I like a fellow as much as I like you.”
She had gone too far; with his scarred face and his amputated arm, he knew he was no young girl’s dream. “Let us not be ridiculous, Miss Cosy.”
She looked down at her hands. “For all I know, you’re covered in sores. If I went to London with you, only to find out you’re scabrous—!” She shuddered delicately. “I’d be stuck in London with a scabby man, now, wouldn’t I?”
“I am not covered in sores, you hussy,” he snapped.
“Good,” she said. “Then you won’t mind proving it. You don’t plan on coming to my bed all buttoned up, with your boots on, I hope?” she added impatiently. “So I’ll be seeing you in the flesh anyway. Right?”
Her request, while startling, was not unreasonable, he reflected. After all, a lady entertaining an offer of marriage had the right to know the character of her future husband before she accepted him. Did it not follow that a woman in Miss Cosy’s position had the right to know that her future lover was physically sound before she threw herself into his power?
As incredible as it seemed, he was actually considering displaying his nude body to a strange female in a kitchen.
“Is it as bad as that, sir?” she said pityingly. “Is it scales? Carbuncles?”
Benedict abruptly stood up and began to struggle out of his coat. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with my body—apart from its obvious defect, that is.”
He threw his coat down, and stood in his waistcoat and shirt sleeves. The right sleeve of his finely pleated linen shirt had been cut short at the elbow and neatly hemmed, unlike his coat, which was tailored in the usual way.
“Of course, if you’d rather not,” she said quickly, “I’ll understand!”
“No. I insist. You are perfectly right to safeguard your health by making certain of mine,” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“You can keep your shirt on if you prefer.”
His lip curled. “I would not have you treat me any differently than you would your other lovers!” he said coldly. “You will find nothing wrong with me, however.”
Loosening his cravat, he tore off his collar and pulled his shirt off over his head.
She stared at him in dismay. While he was not covered in sores, the thick, bristling, black hair that covered his torso was scarcely more attractive to her than a nasty rash would have been. On his chest it grew in ugly, black whorls, and, on his belly, deep, thick chevrons plunged downward to his loins. She hardly looked at his amputated limb. That, at least, she thought, a little irrationally, is not his fault.
“There,” he said, slapping his belly proudly. “That, madam, is all muscle. I walk four miles a day without fail. I am as fit as a fiddle.”
