He crossed his arms over his chest. She’d be bored of Castleton within twenty-four hours of their marriage. And then she’d be miserable.
It’s not your problem.
“Castleton is a gentleman.”
“How diplomatic,” she said, spinning the globe and letting her fingers trail across the raised topography on the sphere as it whirled around. “Lord Castleton is indeed that. He is also an earl. And he likes dogs.”
“And these are the qualities women seek in husbands these days?”
Hadn’t she been about to leave? Why, then, was he still speaking to her?
“They’re better than some of the lesser qualities with which husbands might arrive,” she offered, and he thought he heard an edge of defensiveness in her tone.
“For example?”
“Infidelity. Tendency toward drink. Interest in bull-baiting.”
“Bull-baiting?”
She nodded once, curtly. “A cruel sport. For the bull and the dogs.”
“Not a sport at all, I would argue. But more importantly, are you familiar with a great deal of men who enjoy it?”
She pushed her glasses high on the bridge of her nose. “I read quite a bit. There was a very serious discussion of the practice in last week’s News of London. More men than you would think seem to enjoy its barbarism. Thankfully, not Lord Castleton.”
“A veritable prince among men,” Cross said, ignoring the way her gaze narrowed at the sarcasm in his tone. “Imagine my surprise, then, to find his future countess at my bedside this very morning, asking to be ruined.”
“I did not know you slept here,” she said. “Nor did I expect you to be asleep at one o’clock in the afternoon.”
He raised a brow. “I work quite late.”
She nodded. “I imagine so. You really should purchase a bed, however.” She waved a hand toward his makeshift pallet. “That cannot be comfortable.”
She was steering them away from the topic at hand. And he wanted her out of his office. Immediately. “I am not interested, nor should you be, in aiding you in public ruination.”
Her gaze snapped to his, shock in her eyes. “I am not requesting public ruination.”
Cross liked to think he was a reasoned, intelligent man. He was fascinated by science and widely considered to be a mathematical genius. He could not sit a vingt-et-un game without counting cards, and he argued politics and the law with quiet, logical precision.
How was it, then, that he felt so much like an imbecile with this woman?
“Have you not, twice in the last twenty minutes, requested I ruin you?”
“Three times, really.” She tilted her head to the side. “Well, the last time, you said the word ruination, but I think it should count as a request.”
Like a complete imbecile.
“Three times, then.”
She nodded. “Yes. But not public ruination. That’s altogether different.”
He shook his head. “I find myself returning to my original diagnosis, Lady Philippa.”
She blinked. “Madness?”
“Precisely.”
She was silent for a long moment, and he could see her attempting to find the right words to sway him toward her request. She looked down at his desk, her gaze falling to a pair of heavy silver pendula sitting side by side. She reached out and set them in gentle motion. They watched the heavy weights sway in perfect synchrony for a long moment.
“Why do you have these?” she asked.
“I like the movement.” Their predictability. What moved in one direction would eventually move in the other. No questions. No surprises.
“So did Newton,” she said, simply, quietly, speaking more to herself than to him. “In fourteen days, I shall marry a man with whom I have little in common. I shall do it because it is what I am expected to do as a lady of society. I shall do it because it is what all of London is waiting for me to do. I shall do it because I don’t think there will ever be an opportunity for me to marry someone with whom I have more in common. And most importantly, I shall do it because I have agreed to, and I do not care for dishonesty.”
He watched her, wishing he could see her eyes without the shield of thick glass from her spectacles. She swallowed, a ripple of movement along the delicate column of her throat. “Why do you think you will not find someone with whom you have more in common?”
She looked up at him and said simply, “I’m odd.”
His brows rose, but he did not speak. He was not certain what one said in response to such an announcement.
She smiled at his hesitation. “You needn’t be gentlemanly about it. I’m not a fool. I’ve been odd my whole life. I should count my blessings that anyone is willing to marry me—and thank heavens that an earl wants to marry me. That he’s actually courted me.