Cressida halted and pivoted slightly upon her seat. Still she could not see his face.
“And you, why, you’re thirty-six but many might mistake you for far younger…” He turned suddenly, the upward tilt of hisbrow and earnestness of his tone portending something most unwelcome.
“Richard,” she began, speaking far more gently than she ever had over the duration of their understanding.
“And we get on, don’t we? We get on quite well, in my estimation.” He crossed the room, his words speeding up.
“Richard,” she repeated, lower now. A warning.
He dropped to his knees before her, taking her hands in his, kissing them.
“And you’ve borne two healthy sons, two heirs. That counts for something, doesn’t it? If Grandpapa had any objections, we could certainly point to young Lord Caplin as—”
A flash of anger rushed through her. Howdarehe speak to her of her son? Certainly she would never evendreamof making the merest mention of Arthur or Henry in his presence, and in fact she never had, not once in five years. Just as she’d gone to excruciating lengths to keep her affairs as private as one could. The thought of either of her sons hearing a rumor… Rage surged within her. The cheek, the gall, the downrightcrassnessof it!
Cressida drew her hands back and folded them in her lap.
With one long breath she harnessed her seething anger, twisting it into a cold thread as handily as a crone at her distaff. She held that thread taut, her body tense, her words frigid when she spoke.
“Your grandfather? Object to me?” She feigned a small chuckle. “My dear Richard, have you not spared any room in that lovely head of yours for the notion that perhapsImight be the one to harbor objections?”
The young man sat back on his heels, his expression blank. His arms fell to his sides.
“Objections? You mean, you would hesitate to marry me?”
“Oh, that’s putting it far too mildly, dear. No, Richard, Iwill notmarry you, under any circumstance.”
He blinked. “But we get on so well,” he stuttered.
Cressida sighed and stood. How to make the poor fool understand? The cold anger within her thawed as she remembered his earlier exuberance, the vigor with which he’d moved against her.
“That we do,” she admitted, “which is more than I can say for my first foray into the institution.”
She shut her eyes, trying to will away the wretched memory of Bartholomew’s unpleasant lurching. Cressida could still hear the bed rails wailing in protest during those hateful first nights.
“Then why—”
“Because,” she said sharply, turning on him with one brow raised. “You think I ought to be happy as a bride? Should I be well pleased to limit my daily life to bowing and scraping to your grandfather, to bear you sons?” She paused. The thread was unraveling; she must hold it together. She took a deep breath and continued, more calmly now. “To give up my home, to remove to… to… just a tick, where does your family hail from? I don’t believe I’ve ever asked.”
“Bedfordshire,” he said glumly.
“Oh, Richard,” she said, shaking her head sympathetically. “Absolutely not.”
He stared at the floor for several long moments before pushing himself up to his feet once more.
“So, this is it, then? We’ve shared such…” He swallowed, his eyes glassy. “Intimacies. And now it’s ‘Absolutely not, Richard?’”
“It isn’t so much whether or not you’re up to snuff, mind. It’s merely that I fail to see what advantages a marriage to you would offer.” She looked askance, thinking. “Actually, I suppose itisyou, then—but only somewhat.”
“I suppose you’d laugh if I mentioned the idea of love,” he grumbled.
“Richard,” she tutted as she stood up to retrieve his hat from the stand across the room. “You’re far too old to believe those fairy stories now. What was it? Nearly thirty, you said?”
“Next month,” he said, accepting his hat with a flat expression.
“Well then,” she said, feeling magnanimous as she stretched upward to kiss her lover’s cheek for the last time. “Many happy returns.”
He had somehow succeeded in slipping away after catching his aunt and saying his goodbyes to her. And as he’d fetched his things and made his way to the railway station, he’d even succeeded in avoiding thoughts of Harriet. Or of her meaning when she’d spoken of her last birthday. There was plenty else to think on, such as his appointments for the coming week, the new issue of Hardwicke’sScience-Gossiphe meant to peruse on the return journey to London, and whether or not he’d make it home in time for the dinner service at his club. And if he did, whether the entrée would be pressed duck, for the cooks at the Transom Club were middling at best, and pressed duck one of their worst dishes.
