“Marry?Perhaps.I don’t know.But my friends, what they have done is more thanmarry.”
“They’ve fallen in love.”
“I suppose you believe in all of that bollocks.”
“Not at all.”
Leith’s eyebrows knit at that declaration.
“Truly?I thought all women…”
She rolled her eyes.“Surely, you did.But no.Not only do I not want to marry, but I don’t want to fall in love.Worse, I don’t think Icanfall in love.”
“Why do you think that?”
She paused, wondering how honest she should be with Lord Leith.If she were truly his mistress, she would tell him whatever she thought would get the most coin from his pocket.Probably, in the near future, she would have to feign being in love.She suspected many an aristocratic man enjoyed such a performance.They wanted to pay for something that, on some level, they knew couldn’t be bought.
But with Lord Leith, it was different.They had an arrangement, but hehadto keep her as his mistress.She didn’t have to lie.She didn’t have to pretend she felt things that she didn’t.
“Because I’ve had lovers.Lovers who have fallen in love with me.And I’ve felt—well, I won’t saynothingin return.But I haven’t loved them.”
“How do you know you didn’t love them?”
“Your friends—your mother, even—they disrupted their entire lives because of what they feel for another person.They changed.And I’ve never bedded anyone who has tempted me to change my life in the slightest.”
His eyes widened.“Miss Salisbury, that is my own feeling exactly.I have bedded hundreds of women.And while I have felt more fondness for some and less for others, I have never wanted a permanent attachment.”
“Me either.”
For a moment, Beatrice stared at Leith and Leith looked back at her.She felt that she was truly seeing him for the first time—and she had the sense he felt the same way.Previously, she had regarded him as an obstacle or a mark.At best, she needed to manage him.At worst, she needed to extract what she could.
He was regarding her now with an open, kindly expression.As if he looked at her and saw something like a friend.
“Sally hates it when I say that,” she said, with a laugh, feeling uncomfortable in the newfound fellowship she felt for the man.
“Your maid?”
She nodded, not wanting to explain the complicated nature of who Sally was to her.
“She is a romantic.She doesn’t understand how I can want to bed a gentleman—and then leave him.”
“I understand.My friends—they regard me now—well, I think, it’s absurd to say it, but I think they pity me.I am sure Monty thinks I am absolutely without feeling.”
Again, his expression changed, and he took a hasty sip from his wine.Therewassomething there with Lord Montaigne.
But she wouldn’t press him on what it was.It hardly mattered to her.
“You can’t feel what you don’t.”
He looked at her again, but this time, his gaze felt warm on her face.
“No,” he said.“You can’t.”He looked down into his wineglass.“But I did feel something tonight.In the carriage.With you.”
She laughed.“No games, Lord Leith.I fell for that jape once.”
“I am not jesting.I am being honest.I liked how you spoke.Your hypothetical.”
Ah, so hehadbeen aroused.
