“It’s a fool’s business. I did it to prove my wits, but it turns out that writing a book makes you stupider.”
That was surprising. “How so?”
“Getting all those words down on the page changes your brain,” he elaborated. “Pretty soon you’ll find yourself looking at a mere acquaintance and imagining he’s villainous, when in fact he’s grimacing after drinking cheap sherry. It isn’t gentlemanly. Or ladylike,” he added, for my benefit.
“Miss Jane Austen doesn’t write about villains,” I pointed out.
“Haven’t read her stuff,” Boucheron said. “I like a novel with some meat, if you know what I mean.”
I didn’t.
“Good novels need a monster,” he continued, recognizing that I was perplexed. “A villain of untold cruelty. Readers expect to read about someone ravishing women and poisoning people right and left. The problem is that once you’ve done it, you see monsters everywhere.”
That didn’t sound comfortable.
He lowered his voice. “Did you hear that Vaughan’s cousin ran away with a coachman?”
I nodded.
“I can’t help thinking that she’s lying decapitated in a ditch.”
I blinked.
He pointed his fork. “I look at that boar and think about decapitated women. Theeyeballsof decapitated women whose heads have been boiled.”
Hugh cleared his throat and said, “That is an utterly inappropriate subject for dinner conversation, you fool.”
I admit to being rather glad of the interruption; I sat back and let the two of them fling insults at each other until Lady Middleton turned her head once again.
“May I apologize for my pigheaded friend?” Hugh asked, as Lord Boucheron turned away. “I use that adjective knowingly.”
Hugh did have a lovely smile. “There is no need,” I said. “Amongst themselves, ladies constantly talk about terrible things.”
“You do?”
I sorted through the recent conversations I’d been party to and picked a subject that wasn’t too embarrassing. “Eating brains for breakfast is excellent for regularity,” I told him.
He made a face.
“I’m serious. Drains and digestion are discussed almost every day.”
“No wonder you looked so blue when I first arrived,” he said. “Nothing but drains and digestion since I left for France?”
“To the contrary,” I retorted. “I’ve had heaps of suitors, who discuss all manner of fascinating subjects.”
That was an exaggeration, but I couldn’t help it.
He tactfully didn’t ask me to elaborate. “Tell me more about your novel.”
“Lord Boucheron was quite discouraging,” I admitted.
“Don’t listen to him,” Hugh said. “You were always going to be a novelist. It was only a matter of when you decided to put a quill to paper.”
I have to admit that his statement was so baldly said that it flew to my heart and nestled there. (Not a bad sentence.)
“What were you always going to be?” I asked.
“Don’t you know?”
