“I wish I had been there to see it. Agreeing to marry Stevens, by the way, doesn’t speak highly of your taste. He was a regular ass.” He shrugged. “But that only confuses me further. Possessing poor taste in men doesn’t hinder a woman in the getting of husbands. It generally helps.”
“My God, you are obtuse.” Lydia shook her head. “For a man as outspoken as you are, you are remarkably obtuse. I’m not so much of a catch.”
“That is how you see yourself?”
“Oh, I forgot. I’m the eleventh prettiest girl in all of Leicester.” Her chin raised a notch. “I suppose with that, I ought to be able to catch at least the twenty-second most desirable man—accounting for my perfidy and my tainted past.”
“I have never said that. Surely, in all of Leicester—once we include the surrounding areas—somewhere there must be some man who is undiscriminating enough to marry you.”
Lydia felt curiously light. “I’m sure there is,” she said, very quietly. “And what I most fear is that I am undiscriminating enough to let him do it.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
“Take Captain Stevens, my former fiancé. Not only did he threaten my best friend, but he was putting the most extraordinary pressure my father. And I knew that when he asked. I agreed to marry him, because I thought if I did, it would stop. I convinced myself that we would do well together—that he cared for me, that he would make a good husband. I knew I didn’t care for him in that way, and that was his greatest recommendation. I thought that made me safe.”
Grantham didn’t say anything to that.
“Listen to what I am saying. I convinced myself that George Stevens was safe when he was leaning on my father.” Lydia threw her hands in the air. “And Tom Paggett—I wasn’t the only girl he interfered with. A few months after he left town, the residents of his new city caught him with a thirteen-year-old child. They couldn’t prove…in any event, he was only thrown in the stocks, but the people were so riled that they threw more than fruit, and he…” Lydia didn’t want to finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to. Grantham likely knew what happened to a man who was hit with stones at close range. “And so yes, Doctor, I’m sure that there is some man who will be sufficiently interested. But what I most fear is that I’ll convince myself that he’s safe. I’ll marry him because it will make my family’s life easier, and tell myself again and again that he’s the best thing for me.” Her jaw clenched. “All the while, he’ll be nothing more than a common criminal. You were right about at least one thing. I am overly cheerful, and no group less deserves my cheer than the men who are interested in…”
She bit her lip. She couldn’t say that word, not to a man. She couldn’t. But he was looking at her, and somehow she found the courage.
“No group less deserves my cheer than the men who are interested in my vagina. But we were not talking about me. We were talking about you.” She looked down. “Now that I’ve discovered that you aren’t as bad as I thought, I’m amazed anew. How is it that you could have been fixed on one person for so long? I can understand her not returning your regard—that makes perfect sense.”
“Of course,” he said repressively.
“Not that I mean to be cruel, but you are a little…”
“I am well aware of my flaws,” he said. “We can save their enumeration for some later time, if it pleases you.”
“So—she has refused your suit. Unequivocally. And you are still fixed on her? That seems surprisingly illogical of you.”
Grantham looked at her. “She has not refused my suit. If you must know, I haven’t asked.”
“Haven’t asked her? Doctor Grantham, you can tell a patient straight out that she ought to make a rubber mold of her cervix. You cannot make me believe that you are unable to propose to a woman.”
“The time has never seemed right.” He folded his arms. “There were other people about, or she didn’t seem to be in the proper mood, or I ruined everything by making a stupid joke about gonorrhea. I have not completely crushed my sense of social obligations. In any event, even I have fears. I am afraid that she will turn me down. And once she does so unequivocally, that will be the end of it all.”
“Does she even know that you feel this way about her?”
“She knows,” he said calmly. “At this point, she would have to be an idiot not to know, and she’s not that. I suspect that for her own inscrutable reasons, she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. I am ornery and difficult, but I am not a particularly subtle individual, and there can be no other explanation for my attention to her.”
He looked into her eyes as she spoke, and she felt an unwelcome thrill deep in her belly, as if these words had found their target deep in her solar plexus. She shook off that odd feeling and turned away from the direct intensity of his gaze.
“Believe it or not, Doctor Grantham, I am beginning to like you. Your personality may be…well, a bit abrasive, but it grows on me. I want to help you, give you a push. Even abrasive, difficult men deserve happiness. I should be able to figure out who you’re enamored of without too much difficulty.”