“Poppy has turned down offers of marriage already. But she’s a remarkable person, and I know that she will be married someday. I shall have to find a new companion when she leaves our home, a paid one most likely. It won’t be the same.”
“But you might marry before her. You are also a remarkable person.”
Rosalind blushed at his words. “Your opinion is, alas, not common. I am aware that I do not have the makings of a wife.”
“No? I doubt that. I should think you do have the makings of a lover, or a muse.”
“My lord,” Rosalind began tartly, intent on reprimanding him. “That…was one of the nicest things anyone has ever told me.” Hmm, she thought. That reprimand lacked punch.
Unexpectedly, he laughed. “I can see I’ll have to work much harder to shock you, Miss Blake.”
They talked over many things during the course of the ride, which lasted longer than most, not that Rose noticed. Norbury did succeed in shocking her a few times, but she more than paid him back with an honesty he said he’d never before encountered from a woman.
Rosalind, for her part, delighted in their conversation, recognizing when Lord Norbury teased her, and occasionally tempted her with his words. With every passing minute, she understood more clearly why women fell for him against all advice. He did a truly shocking thing: he listened.
At one point he asked what Rose liked to do with her days, aside from music.
“I do nothing, really,” she replied. “I mean, ladies don’t do much in the first place. Our role is to visit each other’s houses and eat exactly one teacake whilst gossiping about the latest style of neckline. But I do even less than that. I just…take what comes to me.”
“Rosalind,” he said, boldly using her first name, “that’s the first time you’ve ever lied to me.”
“Lied?” she echoed, horrified at his words. “What do you mean?”
“You paint yourself as passive, as someone without drive. But that is utter bullocks. You have taught yourself how to navigate a world you can no longer see, you study music, and you are quite capable of telling idiots to go to hell. In a drawing room boxing match, I’d bet on you over anyone else.”
She laughed at the notion of ladies boxing over tea in a drawing room, but said, “It’s kind of you to say that, but the fact of the matter is that I am heavily reliant on others for the most basic tasks.”
“Everyone is,” he argued. “I can’t even get dressed in the mornings without my valet. To say nothing of how I’d starve before I managed a proper breakfast.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not so different. We are social animals, dependent on others for our survival. Some pretend otherwise, but they are only indulging in their own delusion. For if they were truly independent of society, why do they constantly show up in my club and try to win general approval for their declamations of how they don’t desire to win approval?”
“Do they really?”
“Yes, just as you know ladies who gossip about not gossiping. It’s human.”
“A bit depressing, my lord.”
“Realistic, that’s all.” He paused. “Should I stop talking? I’ve already burned your ears with words you’re not supposed to know, not to mention excoriated the very society that has placed me in a position of wealth and comfort.”
“I like it when you talk, actually,” Rose confessed. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
“What did you think I’d be?”
“I’m not sure. More arrogant. More…flirtatious.”
“Well, I am arrogant, and I would flirt with you if I thought I could get away with it.”
“I think you know you could get away with it, and therefore you’re restraining yourself. What would you do if you were unrestrained, I wonder.”
“For starters, I’d spirit you away to a secret location.”
“Obviously,” she agreed. “It seems the standard practice. What then?”
“I’d seduce you in stages, naturally. I don’t like to rush things.”
“Not rush things? My lord, need I remind you that you kissed me within a quarter hour of meeting me!”
