How to Marry a Marquis (17 page)

Her mouth dropped open. This was the most unbelievable speech.

"And underneath all that kindness and goodness, you seem to possess a wicked sense of humor, no matter how hard you occasionally try to suppress it."

Oh, dear Lord, if he said anything more, she was going to fall in love with him on the spot.

"There's no harm in poking fun at a friend as long as you intend no malice," he said, his voice melting into a soft caress. "And I don't think you would know how to be malicious if someone offered you a dissertation on the subject."

"Then I suppose that makes us friends," she said, her voice catching slightly.

He smiled at her, and her heart stopped beating. "You really have no choice but to be friends with me," he said, leaning closer. "After all, I know all of your most embarrassing secrets."

A nervous giggle escaped her lips. "A friend who is going to find me a husband. How quaint."

"Well, I should think I could do a better job than Mrs. Seeton. If that is indeed-"

"Don't say it," she warned.

"Consider it not said. But if you want some help ..." He looked at her closely. "You do want help, don't you?"

"Er, yes." I think.

"We will need to begin right away."

Elizabeth glanced over at an ornate table clock Lady Danbury had had imported from

Switzerland. "I'm due back in the drawing room in less than an hour."

He flipped through a few pages of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS, shaking his head as he

scanned the words. "Hmm, that's not very much time, but-" He looked up sharply.

"How did you manage to escape Lady Danbury at this time of day?"

"She's taking a nap."

"Again?" His face showed his surprise clearly.

She shrugged. "I found it just as unbelievable as you do, but she insisted. She demanded absolute silence and told me not to rouse her for seventy minutes."

"Seventy?"

Elizabeth grimaced. "That's to keep me on my toes. I'm quoting her on that, by the way."

"Somehow that does not surprise me." James drummed his fingers on the library's main table, then looked up. "We can start after you finish with her this afternoon. I'll need some time to devise a lesson plan, and-"

"A lesson plan?" she echoed.

"We need to be organized. Organization renders any goal reachable."

Her mouth fell open.

He frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You sound exactly like Lady Danbury. In fact, she says that very same phrase."

"Is that so?" James coughed, then cleared his throat. Damn, but he was slipping up. Something about Elizabeth and those angel-blue eyes of hers made him forget that he was working

undercover. He should never have used one of Aunt Agatha's favorite maxims. They'd been

drummed into his head so frequently as a child that they were now his maxims as well.

He'd forgotten that he was talking to the one person who knew every single one of Agatha's

quirks as well as he did. "I'm certain it's just a coincidence," he said, keeping his tone firm. It was his experience that people tended to believe whatever he said as long as he sounded as if he knew what he was talking about.

But not, apparently, Elizabeth. "She says it at least once a week."

"Well, then, I'm sure I must have heard her at some point."

She seemed to accept that explanation, for she let the matter drop and instead said, "You were saying something about lesson plans..."

"Right. I will need the afternoon to plan, but perhaps we might meet when you are done with Lady Danbury. I will walk you home, and we can begin en route."

She smiled weakly. "Very well. I shall meet you at the front gate at thirty-five minutes past four. I am dismissed at half four," she explained, "but it will take me five minutes to walk to the gate."

"Can we not simply meet here?"

She shook her head. "Not unless you want every gossip at Danbury House talking about us."

"An excellent point. The front gate it is, then."

Elizabeth nodded and left the room, her wobbly legs just managing to make it back to the

cushioned bench. Dear Lord, what on earth had she gotten herself into?

Meow.

She looked down. Malcolm the demon cat was sitting at her feet, staring at her as if she were a kitchen rat.

"What do you want?"

The cat shrugged. Elizabeth hadn't known that a cat could shrug, but then again, she hadn't

thought she'd ever find herself sitting in Danbury House's great hall, talking to her feline nemesis.

"You think I'm ridiculous, don't you?"

Malcolm yawned.

"I've agreed to let Mr. Siddons train me to find a husband."

The cat's ears perked forward.

"Yes, I know you like him better than me. You like everyone better than me."

The cat shrugged again, clearly unwilling to contradict her statement.

"You think I can't do it, don't you?"

Malcolm made a rolling motion with his tail. Elizabeth was at a complete loss to translate this, but given the cat's well-documented distaste for her, she tended to believe it meant, "I have a better chance of finding a husband than you do."

"Elizabeth?"

She turned beet-red and jerked her head to the side. James had poked his head

through the library door and was regarding her quizzically.

"Are you talking to the cat?"

"No."

"I could have sworn I heard you talking to the cat."

"Well, I'm not."

"Oh."

"Why would I talk to the cat? He hates me."

His lips twitched. "Yes. So you said."

She tried to pretend she didn't realize that her cheeks were burning. "Don't you have something to do?"

"Ah, yes, the lesson plans. I shall see you a bit after half four."

Elizabeth waited until she heard the library door click shut. "Dear God," she breathed. "I have gone insane. Completely insane."

Adding insult to injury, the cat nodded.

James arrived at the front gate at a quarter past four, knowing he was ridiculously early, but somehow unable to stop his feet from carrying him to the appointed meeting site. He had felt restless all afternoon, constantly drumming his fingers on tables and pacing across rooms. He had tried to sit down and write out the lesson plan he had bragged about, but the words would not come.

He had no experience in training a young lady for society. The only young lady he really knew was the wife of his best friend, Blake Ravenscroft. And Caroline hadn't precisely been trained for society herself. As for all of his other female acquaintances-they were just the sort Mrs.

Seeton was trying to mold Elizabeth into. Just the sort that had prompted his overwhelming

relief at leaving London.

What was it he wanted in a woman? His quest to help Elizabeth seemed to beg the question.

What was it he wanted in a wife? He had to marry; there was no arguing fate in that respect. But it had been so damned hard to imagine spending the rest of his life with a shy flower who was afraid to express an opinion.

Or worse, a shy flower who didn't even possess an opinion.

And the final twist of the bayonet was that those opinionless young ladies invariably came with extremely opinionated mothers.

He wasn't being fair, he forced himself to concede. He'd met a few young ladies who were

interesting. Not many, but a few. One or two of them he even could have married without fearing that he was ruining his life. It wouldn't have been a love match, and there would have been no grand passion, but he could have been passably content.

So what was it these ladies-the ones who had fleetingly caught his attention-had possessed? It was a certain joie de vivre, a love for life, a smile that seemed real, a light in the eyes. James was fairly certain he wasn't the only man who had seen these things-all of the young ladies in

question had been quickly snapped up into marriage, usually by men whom he liked and

respected.

Love for life. Maybe that was what this was all about. He'd spent the morning reading HOW TO

MARRY A MARQUIS, and with each edict, he'd pictured a little bit more of that incomparable

sapphire light melting away from Elizabeth's eyes.

He didn't want her molded into some predetermined ideal of young English womanhood. He

didn't want her walking with her eyes downcast, trying to be mysterious and demure. He just

wanted her to be herself.

Elizabeth shut the door to Danbury House behind her and set off down the main drive. Her heart was racing, her hands were clammy, and while she didn't feel precisely embarrassed that James had discovered her desperate secret, she was as nervous as could be.

She had spent all afternoon berating herself for accepting his offer. Hadn't she spent the previous night sobbing herself to sleep, all because she thought she could love him-a man she could never marry? And now she was purposely putting herself in his company, allowing him to tease her, to flirt with her, and-Good God, what if he wanted to kiss her again? He said he was going to train her

to attract other men. Did that entail kissing? And if it did, should she let him do it?

She groaned. As if she'd be able to stop him. Every time they were in the same room together, her eyes wandered to his mouth, and she remembered what it felt like to have those lips on hers.

And God help her, she wanted that again.

A final glimpse of bliss. Maybe that was what this was all about. She was going to have to

marry someone she didn't love, maybe even someone she didn't much like. Was it so wrong to

want a few last days of laughter, of secret glances, of that heady tingle of newborn desire?

As she walked toward the front gate she suspected that she was courting heartbreak by agreeing to meet James, but her heart wouldn't let her do anything else. She'd read enough Shakespeare to trust the Bard, and if he said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all-she believed him.

He was waiting for her, just out of sight of Danbury House, and his eyes lit up when he saw her.

"Elizabeth," he called out, striding toward her.

She paused, content to just watch him approach, the light breeze ruffling his dark hair. She'd never met anyone who seemed more comfortable in his skin as James Siddons. He had such an

easy stride, a smooth gait. She thought about the innumerable times she'd tripped over a rug or swung her hand into a wall and sighed in envy.

He reached her side and said simply, "You're here."

"Didn't you think I would be?"

"I had thought you might have second thoughts."

"Of course I have second thoughts. This is quite the most irregular thing I've ever done."

"How admirable of you," he murmured.

"But it wouldn't matter if I'd had second, third, or even fourth thoughts." She smiled helplessly.

"I have to walk right by here to get home, so I couldn't avoid you if I tried."

"How fortunate for me."

"I have a feeling that fortune often smiles upon you."

He cocked his head. "Now, why would you say that?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. You just seem the sort who always lands on his feet."

"I suspect you are a survivor, too."

"In a certain sense, I suppose. I could have given up on my family years ago, you know.

Relatives did offer to take in Lucas."

"But not the rest of you?"

She smiled wryly. "The rest of us aren't in possession of titles."

"I see." He took her arm and motioned to the south. "Is it this way?"

She nodded. "Yes, about a mile down the road, then about a quarter of a mile down the side lane."

They walked for a few paces, and then he turned to her and said, "You said you were a survivor

'in a certain sense.' What did you mean by that?"

"It's easier for a man to be a survivor than a woman."

"That makes no sense."

She gave him a faintly pitying look. He would never understand what she had to say, but she

supposed she owed it to him to try to explain nonetheless. "When a man falls on hard times," she said, "there are quite a number of things he may do, options he may pursue, to reverse his situation. He may join the army, or sign on to a pirate ship. He may look for work, as you have done.

He may use his charm and looks"-she shook her head and smiled reluctantly-"as I imagine you have also done."

"And a woman may not do these things?"

"A woman looking for work does not have many options if she does not wish to leave her home.

A governess post might pay marginally better than a lady's companion, but I doubt many

employers would look too kindly upon my bringing Susan, Jane, and Lucas with me to live in the servants' wing."

"Touché," he said with an understanding nod.

"And as for charm and looks, well, a woman can use those for three things. She can go into the theater, she can become a man's mistress, or she can marry. As for me, I have no inclination or talent for acting and no wish to shame my family by entering into an illicit relationship." She looked up at him and shrugged. "My only choice is marriage. That, I suppose, is what it means for a woman to be a survivor."

She paused, and the corners of her mouth quivered as if they didn't know whether to attempt a smile or a frown. "Rather distasteful, don't you think?"

James didn't answer her for several moments. He liked to think of himself as a broad-minded individual but he had never once taken the time to imagine what it must be like in the tight, pinching shoes of a woman. He had taken his life, with its myriad choices, for granted.

She tilted her head. "Why are you looking at me so intently?"

"Respect."

She drew back in surprise. "I beg your pardon?"

"I admired you before. You seemed an uncommonly intelligent and amusing young woman. But now I realize that you deserve my respect as well as my admiration."

"Oh. I-I-" She blushed, clearly at a loss for words.

He shook his head. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."