“You are afraid of being at my mercy?”
“It’s more pride than fear, I hope. I’m not ashamed—not anymore—of having such skills that would earn me a good living.”
He brought her hands to the light and looked at them. She allowed him. The old scars and burn marks had faded with age, though there were new ones. Her calluses had become less pronounced and her skin much more supple than he remembered.
“I remembered your hands. I thought of them every time I held a soft hand untroubled by work.”
“Now you tell me. I would have ceased my religious application of hand salve if I’d known,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
He kissed her palm, tentatively, and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath on her part. So the sensitivity of her hands hadn’t changed. He glanced at her, mischief on his mind.
“Oh, dear,” she said, pressing her palm to his lips again. “Now I’m afraid of being at your mercy.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The man who’d seduced Lizzy two nights before rose from his breakfast table. “Lizzy?! What are you doing here?” “I’ve come to see you, of course.” She smiled through clenched teeth.
His expression was one of confusion and incipient worry. “You came all the way from Lyndhurst Hall by yourself? When? Does your father know where you are?”
The landlady left. Lizzy pushed the door firmly shut. She’d come the night before, fabricating some excuse about a bosom friend in need. Her father, alarmed—he’d had to announce the end of her engagement and she was not acting herself—had insisted on accompanying her. So this morning, while her father was in his bath, she’d ordered the footman who usually followed her on her morning walks to stay in the house, then left, climbing into the first passing hansom.
“You cur! You dirty, rotten scoundrel!” She gave free rein to her anger. “What games are you playing with me?”
“What are you talking about, Lizzy?”
He looked so gorgeous and so sincerely puzzled she didn’t know whether to hit him or to cry.
“My former fiancé told me about your inheritance. He said I have nothing but ‘ease and plenty’ to look forward to in my future. Why do I hear about such a thing from him rather than you? What exactly are your intentions toward me?”
“To marry you, of course. I was just in the middle of writing to my youngest brother, to tell him the good news.”
He went to the writing table and came back with a sheet of paper. She skimmed it. Various words jumped out at her. Bliss. Soon. Marry. Bessler. Wonderful. Happy.
“And the license is in my room, if you still don’t believe me,” he said. “And I would have left directly after breakfast for Lyndhurst Hall to speak with your father.”
She exhaled. The worst fear in her calmed. But still she was upset. “That answers only one of my questions. Do you have any idea how wrenching this decision has been at times for me—to think of all the friends I’d have to give up because they would turn out to be fair-weather friends, and how my father would always have to worry because I’d married a poor man? You could have eased my mind at any point, and you didn’t.”
“It was never my intention to—”
She didn’t let him finish. “You don’t think very highly of me, do you? You thought that if I knew about the money then my decision would be based solely on that.”
“No! No!” He shook his head vigorously. “That is not true. I haven’t told anyone other than Matthew and our baby brother, and Mr. Somerset knows only because he was my lawyer in the matter. My great-uncle—the one who put me in his will—is one of the most spectacular eccentrics of our time, fully capable of changing his mind at the last minute and leaving everything to his dogs—which he had done at one point, but the dogs died.”
“Excuses, excuses. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t trust me.”
“No, quite the contrary. I was tempted to tell you. But had I told you, I would have grossly misrepresented my situation. My great-uncle may be eighty-eight, but he is as healthy as a horse and could very well live another twenty years. Goodness knows, he’s already outlived two sets of beneficiaries to his will—and that’s not counting the dogs. How could I promise you ‘ease and plenty’ when neither might be forthcoming for years, perhaps decades? And how would you feel when nothing materializes? So I had to trust and hope that you would choose me, even given my current poverty.”
She almost laughed when he mentioned the dogs again. Everything he said made sense—and was all easily verifiable via Stuart. She had to remind herself that she was upset with him.
“You could have at least given me a hint.”