She wouldn’t. Not so soon.
I was married from the time I was twelve years old,and it seemed a very long time,and I would rather not be married again straightaway.
“She’s a woman,” said Adderwood. “They all want to rule their own households.”
“I shouldn’t count on that in her case, if I were you,” Marchmont said. “Certainly I shouldn’t be so foolish as to wager on it.”
Adderwood’s eyebrows went up. “Marchmont advising a fellow against a wager. Now I’ve heard everything.”
“I tell you because you’re my friend and I deem it unfair to let you throw money away in that cause,” Marchmont said. “Miss Lexham has told me she doesn’t want to be married straightaway. This shouldn’t surprise you. Having read her story, you must understand her wishing to enjoy her freedom for a time.”
“Women change their minds,” said Adderwood. “They’re famous for it.”
“Do you fancy you can change hers?”
“Perhaps. If I can’t, somebody will. Once she’s going about in Society, once she begins meeting Englishmen and finds herself endlessly wooed and pursued, I think she’ll change her mind. How do you know what ‘straightaway’ means to her? It could mean tomorrow. Next week.”
“You don’t know Zoe.”
“And you don’t know everything,” said Adderwood.
No one knows her better than I do, Marchmont thought.
“A thousand pounds,” he said. “A thousand says she finishes the Season as Miss Lexham.”
“Done,” said Adderwood.
Zoe, as always, was aware of everything going on about her. She was most palpably aware of Marchmont prowling the room like one of Yusri Pasha’s caged tigers.
She was aware, too, that her plan wasn’t working.
Papa had shaken his head over Marchmont’s list and muttered something about “old men” and scratched off most of the names. Even so, even though he’d kept the two youngest ones and added Lord Winterton, and even though these younger men had seemed disposed to admire her—well, at least Adderwood and Alvanley seemed to do so; Winterton seemed merely to find her amusing—even so, she found herself as unmoved in their company as she had been with Karim.
Alvanley was not handsome but very witty. She felt nothing.
Adderwood was not only handsome but charming and witty. She felt no heat, no thrill.
Winterton was as handsome as Marchmont, and others might view him as more romantic, with his dark hair and eyes, but she felt no excitement of any kind in his company, either. He was the man who’d rescued her, and she would always be grateful. But she couldn’t feel more than gratitude.
None of them had succeeded in blotting Marchmont from her mind.
Still, that was only three eligible men, she told herself. When she was finally moving freely in Society, she’d meet many, many more. The odds were in her favor.
In the meantime, she must do something about Marchmont. He’d had a great deal to drink. He must have an unusually strong head for liquor. Any other man, she thought, would have been carried out to his carriage by now.
She knew he was uneasy about this dinner. She knew he thought it a bad idea. Otherwise he wouldn’t have put a lot of elderly bachelors and widowers on his list of “eligibles.” He was worried she’d misbehave and spoil everything.
Too, he was jealous.
It was very difficult to enjoy the company and concentrate on other people when he was prowling about, cross and bored and wanting to fight somebody.
Men, she knew, would fight over women merely to prove who was the bigger and stronger male. It didn’t matter whether they really wanted the woman or not.
She drifted from one group of guests to the next until she saw him talking to Alvanley, near the windows. Then she approached. “I should like a word with His Grace,” she said.
Alvanley gracefully made himself scarce, as she’d known he would. He was not as competitive with Marchmont as Lord Adderwood was.
“What word is that?” Marchmont said when his friend had moved out of earshot.
