‘No more than he deserved.’ The glimmer had become a twinkle of amusement.
‘Let me be the judge of that. What did you do to him?’
‘Would it not be better to ask what he did to me?’ she said, now smiling with evil glee.
‘Probably not. I did nothing at all to you at Almack’s. We had not even been introduced. Your assault on me was unprovoked.’
The look in response to that was pointed and the fleck in her eye no longer seemed to dance. It glowed amber with accusation. ‘You did nothing? Think again, sir.’
Had he done something to upset her? She seemed to think so. But what could it have been? He could not remember even hearing her name before the moment she dumped her lemonade on him. ‘We were not speaking of me,’ he said cautiously. ‘But if you insist on it, I will ask the question in a way that is most likely to get me an answer. What did Haines do to you that caused you to respond in a way that left him so wary of you?’
She nodded in approval, as though he were a particularly smart pupil and she the tutor. ‘I made my come out two years ago and he was one of the more promising suitors.’
‘You had more than one?’ It was rude of him to doubt the fact. Had he not just acclaimed her exceptionally pretty?
She responded with the sort of coy pout he’d have expected on any of the playful misses flirting by the pavilion. ‘More than two, as well. I will make you a list, if you wish. It will save us both the trouble of you making introductions to people I already know all too well.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ he said, suddenly afraid to ask how many men had tried and failed to win her.
‘But as I said, at one time, Mr Haines was a favourite.’
‘Of yours?’
‘Simply a favourite. But on an evening much like this, he lured me to the dark walks and attempted to take liberties.’
‘He tried to kiss you.’ This was quite at odds with the awkward spinster he had been imagining.
She gave him a disappointed look. ‘You tried to kiss me, Mr Lovell. Mr Haines tried to take liberties,’ she repeated in a flat tone that made it quite clear she set her bounds of personal propriety well past a simple peck upon the cheek.
He was not sure if he was horrified or impressed. ‘And I assume you were discovered. Was there was a scandal?’
She laughed. ‘No on both counts. You should know that after our rendezvous at the Middletons’ I have no intention of being forced by scandal to marry a man I do not respect.’
He was not sure which stung worse, her glib dismissal of their last meeting or the slight on his character. Did the woman have no heart at all? Then he remembered that it did not matter if she cared for him. She was not the woman he wanted.
She snapped her fingers in his face. ‘Really, Mr Lovell, contain yourself. You are gaping at me like a beached cod.’
He gave a brief shake of his head to regain his senses. ‘I apologise, Miss Summoner. I was shocked because I thought, for a moment, I was speaking with a normal young lady. Do go on.’
There was a brief flash of those exceptional eyes to tell him that his answering shot had struck home. Then she continued. ‘As I was saying, I had no desire to marry Mr Haines and he had no desire to explain to all of London that the bruise he received did not come from Gentleman Jackson.’ She laid a finger on her cheek beside her nose.
‘You blacked his eye?’ His shock changed to awe. ‘I should consider myself lucky to have escaped from the cupboard unscathed.’
‘You only kissed my hand,’ she said.
But what a kiss it had been...
‘And a simple no did not dissuade Mr Haines,’ she continued. ‘He was most ardent. Should he claim to you that I broke his heart, it is an exaggeration. His feelings were no more engaged than mine were.’
At this, he hardly knew what to think. ‘Were you in the habit of trifling with men’s affections, Miss Summoner?’
She gave another flutter of her fan. ‘Some mutual trifling might have occurred. I was poorly chaperoned and had no mother to warn me against flirting. Since my father left me to the care of servants when Mother passed, it was most foolish of him to think he could reappear when I was old enough to marry and put strictures on my behaviour.’ While he saw no bitterness in her when she spoke of her sister, her feelings for her father were far more readable. At the mention of him, her lips thinned, her jaw tightened and the spark in her eye went so dark as to almost disappear.
‘He was fortunate that you did not ruin yourself to spite him,’ Ben said.
‘Perhaps so. But that was long ago, Mr Lovell, and no real harm was done.’ Mischief returned to the eyes peering at him from over her fan. ‘Now, I am older and wiser and have charged myself to be sure no one takes similar advantage of my sister.’