“Then one wonders why you have followed me here, Lord Ashley,” she said, standing near enough now that he could touch her if he wished.
Of course, he wished.
He clenched his fists to stave off the desire.
“I did not follow you, Miss Winter,” he lied.
“Of course you did,” she insisted. “Just as you followed me on the two previous occasions our paths have crossed.”
“Three occasions,” he muttered below his breath before he could think better of it.
Ash could not be certain if she had truly forgotten how many times they had spoken or if she was intentionally nettling him. With Miss Prudence Winter, it could certainly be either.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
He cleared his throat again and then busied himself by brushing the sleeve of his coat. Affectingennuiwas a special gift of his. “Nothing to concern yourself over, Miss Winter. I can assure you, I have not been following you.”
She tilted her head, considering him with a chocolate-brown gaze he could not help but to feel saw far too much. “As you wish, Lord Ashley. Please just go. I am in search of a book to read. Surely there is some other lady in attendance you can attempt to seduce in my stead? I am certain I have made my lack of enthusiasm known.”
Curse it, the woman was bold and brash. He would have told Gill to seek another bride, but the bind their wastrel father had left the estates in meant Gill needed to take a wife with the sort of immense funds only a Winter possessed. And the Winter sisters were all a troublesome lot, as far as Ash could tell.
Especially the Winter before him.
“You have confused the matter, I am afraid, Miss Winter,” he told her calmly, forcing a polite smile. “Seducing you is not my aim at all. Rather, I am aiding my brother in his search for a bride.”
She appeared distinctly unimpressed. “While offering His Grace your assistance is commendable, I fear you are wasting your time with me. I have no intention of marrying.”
No intention of marrying?
Just what manner of femalewasMiss Prudence Winter?
“And why is that, Miss Winter?” he asked. “I should think marriage the goal of every eligible young lady.”
Gads, he sounded like a bloody vicar. Ash shuddered inwardly.
She graced him with the smile of someone who was humoring another. “Not every eligible young lady. Indeed, some of us prefer to remain free to live our lives and spend our fortunes as we see fit.”
It sounded rather a lot like his own philosophy, except he did not have a fortune. His freedom, however, yet remained his, and always would if he had any say in the matter. He was the second son. He need not marry well or at all, and spend the rest of his life a bachelor, pockets to let. There could be worse fates, surely.
Gill, however, bore all the responsibility.
“What did you have in mind for your freedom and your fortune?” he could not resist asking her, curious in spite of himself.
“I want to start my own foundling hospital,” she told him.
Her response flummoxed him. He would not have been more surprised had she announced she intended to ride a donkey to the moon.
“A foundling hospital,” he repeated.
“Yes.” A smile curved her lush lips, so deep it revealed twin dimples in her cheeks. “My brother patronizes a foundling hospital in London, and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the time I have spent there with the children. There is nothing I would like more than to begin my own.”
When she smiled like that, she was bloody breathtaking. He could not look away, even if she was spouting on about her charitable works.Bloody hell, the woman was a saint.
Not his sort of female, thankfully.
He preferred the licentious sort. Ladies who were selfish and interested only in finding the next vice. Ladies who were not ladies at all.
“Coventry adores children,” he told her. “Indeed, it is a coincidence which cannot be overlooked that just yesterday, His Grace was telling me how desperately he longed to begin his own foundling hospital as well.”
