She sipped her drink, watching the piano player over the rim.
“Have you ever heard Ragtime before?”
Prim shook her head. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The song ended, the singer announcing a short break. Voices and laughter rose around them. Prim peered this way and that, absorbing every detail of the club. She asked him about it, about other clubs like it to fill the intermission. Finally, she asked him the question that’d been plaguing her all week. She certainly couldn’t have asked Leachman when he’d come to call with Declan during his weekly visit the previous night. His awkward apology had been difficult enough though she was gracious, knowing his suit would come to an end.
“How did you manage to subdue Mr. Leachman the other night? You hardly moved at all but he was clearly in pain.”
“Mrs. Preston’s daughter, Kitty, has an unusual butler. An old Chinaman,” James explained, sipping his drink. “He worked with my brother Vin after he…well, suffered a prolonged illness to restore his strength and health. He used the ancient martial arts combined with harmony and nature to build strength from without and from within. Unifying life’s energy. I found it fascinating and asked him to teach me as well.”
“But you didn’t fight him at all.”
“No, it is for defense in practice,” he said. “Submission without doing harm.”
“He was in pain,” she pointed out.
James grinned wickedly. “Aye, he was.”
With an answering smile, Prim sipped her cocktail with an unladylike smack of her lips. A flush of embarrassment quickly followed.
James laughed, raising his glass in silent toast.
With a low chuckle, Prim saluted him as well before taking another sip. “This is really quite good.”
“Would you like another?” When she nodded, he twitched a finger to summon the waiter and ordered another round for them both.
* * *
“Why Mossman Leachman?” he asked, once they were relatively alone again.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m curious, why do your brothers believe you should marry him over any other? Why not someone else?”
Their new drinks arrived and Prim turned her attention to hers. A few sugar crystals stuck to the rim of the glass and she caught them with her fingertip. Then licked them off. It might not have been anything more than a tipsy gesture as she relaxed from her usual proper behavior, but it skewed James’s train of thought back to those long kisses in the carriage.
“Fletcher was a junior partner at the First Bank of New York where Declan is on the board,” she began a moment later, dragging his thoughts back to those more proper. “Mr. Leachman also works there and was a friend of my father, who started the bank with Declan many years ago. Shane has taken his place there since he died. They all invested together multiple times. I suppose Shane and Declan felt…feel,” she amended, “their collective familiarity with my husband’s investments puts Mr. Leachman in the perfect position to take over the control of them. He’s convinced my other brothers of the same.”
“You’re not so sure?”
“I’m sure Mr. Leachman has some excellent qualities, but to be honest, I find him half an idiot.”
“Well, it’s the other half that counts, right?”
Prim chuckled at that. “I suppose so. I’d rather not marry either half, though.”
James joined her, amused. “No, I suppose that’s understandable.”
Laying his hand over hers, he stroked his thumb back and forth over the soft skin of her knuckles, wishing now that they were not in such a public place.
“But that that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t marry at all.”
* * *
A rush of longing at his words washed over her followed by a flash of panic. It would never do to give him the impression that her thoughts on the matter had been swayed at all. By him. Because of him. She’d see his back at the door in that moment.
“I’ve told you before,” she said in a rush. “I’ve no desire to remarry. I want nothing more than my own independence.”
