Beth looked down for a moment to gather her thoughts. “I want to thankyou,” she said. “You are being very kind.”
“You needn’t sound so damned surprised.” When she looked up in alarmshe saw he was mostly teasing. “I’m not a candidate for sainthood,” hesaid. “Love, sex, marital duties,” he grimaced at the term, “call it whatyou will. It should at least be pleasant for both parties. I refuse tosettle for less. We have the rest of our lives.”
“Not quite that if I am to bear the heir to Belcraven,” Beth pointedout, amazed that she was having this calm discussion on such asubject.
He flashed her a look of exasperation. “If you continue to be such apedant,” he said “the rest of your life is likely to be a very shortperiod of time.”
Beth frowned at him. “You are constantly threatening me withviolence.”
“Oh, come now,” he drawled. “There must have been a moment or two whenI was less than bloodthirsty.”
“Now who’s being the pedant?”
“What’s good for the goose ...” he said.
“That,” she retorted, “sounds remarkably like another challenge.”
He didn’t deny it. “ ‘What dire offense from amorous causes springs, /What mighty contests rise from trivial things?’ ”
“Pope.Rape of the Lock”she said promptly. “Trivial,” she mused, thenoffered, “ ‘Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivialattentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, menare insultingly supporting their own superiority.’ ”
“Must be the divine Mary,” he sighed, but there was still humor in hiseyes. He thought for a moment then countered with,“ ‘Friendship does notadmit of assumptions of superiority.’ ”
Beth frowned. “I don’t think I know that. It sounds like an excellentsentiment, though? and one Mary Wollstonecraft would have endorsed.”
“I confess, I don’t know where it comes from either. I think it wassomething Nicholas Delaney once quoted to me.” He took her hand. “Lastnight we pledged friendship, Beth. Can I hope it still holds?”
She was alarmingly sensitive to his slightest touch but struggled notto show it. “We seem destined to squabble. It’s a strange kind offriendship.”
“The only kind,” he said with a grin. “I don’t have a friend whose eyeI’ve not blacked.”
“Violence again,” she protested, but lightly.
He laughed. “I promise never to black your eye.”
“Not even if I top your best quotation?”
“Not even then.”
“Very well.” Beth grinned at him.
“Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abjectintercourse between tyrants and slaves.‘ Oliver Goldsmith.”
With a shake of his head he gave her the victory. His thumb rubbedabsently against the back of her hand and he considered his words. “Wouldit make any difference, I wonder, who was the tyrant, who the slave?”
“Not to me. I have no desire to be either.”
He kissed her hand and let it go. “Then we must work at friendship. Idon’t suppose,” he said dryly, “it will be particularly easy.Idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est.”
“You fear our tastes are too different?” she said. “How then do yousuppose we recognize each other’s quotations? And I do like yourfriends.”
“That gives me hope,” he said with a grin. “You obviously have a tastefor rogues.”
They arrived at Hartwell in excellent humor and it proved to be asunalarming as he had promised. It was a small house of two storiesboasting only four modest bedrooms. It sat comfortably in pleasant gardensbordered along one edge by a stream. Beyond the walls the rest of themarquess’ estate was given over to farming. The staff proved to be onlyfive, and Beth felt she could manage that well enough.
She was relieved to find that she and the marquess were to haveseparate bedrooms but was aware that there was no lock on the linking doorand that she could not use one if there were. She had been coerced intothis marriage, but she had agreed, agreed to a marriage in full. To beacting a farce over it at this point would be ridiculous.
Beth was disconcerted by her mental confusion about the intimacies ofmarriage, for she had always considered herself a practical woman. Despitetheir new harmony, any thought of the marquess and the marriage bedplunged her into a morass of fascination and fear. She hated the turmoilof it. She would much rather postpone the whole business until she couldapproach it in a calm and rational way.
