“Hmm.” He affected a pose of deep concentration. “But what if I am riding the camel during the evening?”
“Then no one can see the little yellow hairs on your breeches anyway,” she pointed out. “Besides, by the time you got wherever you were going, your clothes would be out of fashion anyway. Not to mention sun-faded and mud-stained.”
“And that,” Thaddeus said, “is the real reason I would never do it. I am a very fashionable gentleman, constantly out-fashioning everyone else, and it would wound my ego to become the second-most fashionable gentleman because I decided to take a six-month hackney ride.”
Her lips twitched. “You might be the first-most handsome gentleman in all of London, but that waistcoat hasn’t been à la mode in three seasons.”
He clutched his palm to his chest with a gasp. “A well-bred lady would never insinuate such a horrid thing!”
“Well-bred ladies also don’t ride camels,” she said with a shrug, and then paused. “That can’t possibly be true. How else could they get from one place to another?”
“Horses,” he pointed out. “Or giant marmots. Whatever’s native. Why are you so determined to do everything on camel-back?”
“Because I’ve never done anything on camel-back,” she admitted. “Or marmot-back, now that you mention it. But I’ll let you go first with the marmot.”
“I’m not going at all,” he reminded her with a little shudder. “Think of all I would have to give up. What if Gunter’s has no tea shops in Africa?”
“What if there are countless treats a hundred times better?” she countered. “Don’t you agree it would be amazing to hop on a ship and explore the four corners of the world for the rest of your life?”
“No?” His expression was comical. “Have you ever tasted quinine?”
She blinked. “Have you?”
He waved this away. “It sounds like something that would taste dreadful. I’ll stick to the ales at the Wicked Duke, if you please.”
She bit her lip. “Would you really be content never to leave England?”
“I have left,” he admitted. “As soon as the war was over, I took an extended trip to the Continent. France is a stone’s throw away. I would return in a heartbeat.”
A pleasant rush of surprise took her. “You do like to travel?”
“I love people,” he reminded her. “Other countries are full of walking biographies. If I had the means, I’d spend a month on the Continent every year.”
If I had the means. Therein lay the rub.
He was almost perfect. He did like adventure. But he wasn’t willing to go further than the Continent, and didn’t even have enough blunt to do that much. Add in the expense of a wife, and Thaddeus Middleton would be spending the rest of his life in England whether he wished to or not.
“What about you?” he asked. “Would you really give up having roots and a place to call home?”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted,” she said softly. A life of excitement and adventure. It was the driving force behind everything she did. “Not everyone has the same dreams, and that’s a good thing. Your biographies must illustrate that. Differences are what make people interesting.”
“True enough,” he conceded, his eyes losing focus. “If everyone was the same, I wouldn’t have filled up half as many journals with…” He cleared his throat and turned toward the shelves. “What were you in here looking for?”
“Just a moment.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and stared at him in fascination. “You don’t just read biographies… you write them?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I take notes. Copious notes. For future biographies that I also definitely won’t write. It’s very boring. Let’s go back to talking about quinine. Malaria is such a charming subject. Are you planning to contract scurvy first? It is a long boat ride over.”
“You write,” she said in wonder. “I would love to read something you wrote.”
“You read my words every day,” he reminded her. “I have kept you faithfully up-to-the-minute on the goings-on at Chez Middleton.”
“And you’re brilliant at it,” she told him. “Even in French, I can picture everything just as you describe and giggle over the amusing bits even on second or third reading.”
He stared at her, startled. “You reread my letters?”
“Endlessly.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “Your words could only be sweeter if I witnessed them fall from your lips.”
“That’s not all my lips can do, ma très chère,” he said with an exaggerated swagger, clearly meant to break the spell of the moment.
