“My objections to Bradshaw are many and varied. If one works to keep him somewhere else and me here, I will use it.”
“What do you think you’re doing here, anyway?” she asked. She’d have to be careful about what she said with Edward present, blast it all.
“I’m calling on you.” He stepped back. “Is Hyde Park acceptable?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s fine.”
He swung into Charlemagne’s saddle, and the three of them trotted toward the nearby park. She watched as he leaned sideways, correcting his brother’s hold on the reins. Tristan was a born horseman, and even when she’d hated him, she’d enjoyed watching him ride. Now, though, it wasn’t his horsemanship as much as his seat that she was admiring.
“Just so you know,” he said as he returned to her side, “I don’t intend to do or say anything the least bit unpleasant today. I’m beginning a courtship. But I’ll only behave for as long as you do.”
She kept her gaze between Sheba’s ears as they entered the park. “I don’t understand, Tristan,” she said slowly, unsure of how much she should be saying aloud. “Why take the risk? You have an heiress already in your pocket.”
“I have never made anything even resembling a promise of marriage to Amelia Johns,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Put her out of your mind; this is about us, and about how much I want you again.”
“So are you courting me, or seducing me?” She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice.
“I’m courting you. The next night we share, neither of us will be fleeing.”
Georgiana blushed. She’d supposedly just broken his heart, and he was already planning their next naked rendezvous. Perhaps he didn’t have a heart. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“It’s one of my better traits.”
Obviously she’d miscalculated somewhere. Now he thought he could dictate when and how they met, and what it should mean. She narrowed her eyes. If they were even, then she had an equal right to decide just how much she would let him get away with. And whom she wished to see.
“Please take me back now,” she said, turning Sheba as she spoke.
“We only just got here.”
“I know, but I’m to go on a picnic with Lord Westbrook in an hour, and I need to change and freshen up.”
His expression darkened. “You don’t have any such thing planned. You just made that up.”
“I did not. Wait until he arrives, if you wish, but you’ll look even more foolish than you do now, paying attention to a woman who is known to despise you.”
Tristan’s lips compressed into a hard, thin line. “That is not how this is going to proceed.”
“Yes, it is. I’m not needed by your aunts, any longer, and I have therefore accepted invitations from several gentlemen. You’re only one of them.”
He urged Charlemagne closer. “You said you had no intention of ever marrying,” he said, in so low a voice it was almost a growl.
“Yes, and I’ve been thinking about that. It was you, as I recall, who pointed out that I could marry anyone who needed my dowry. And given how much money that is, I could marry just about anyone.”
“Reconsider. Westbrook’s a bore, and he doesn’t need your money.”
“And because he doesn’t, I presume that he likes my company and my conversation. You said if a man loved me, he would forgive that he wasn’t my…first. You give sound advice, Tristan.”
“Reconsider. Spend the day with me.”
It annoyed her that for a bare moment she was tempted. “No. We are even, Dare, and therefore you have no more right to my time than anyone else in the world.”
“I think I do. I could make you spend time with me, Georgiana. I could even make you marry me.”
She met his hard, glittering eyes. “If you wish to press your suit in that manner, I will hate you, I will be ruined, and I will return home to Shropshire—as an unmarried woman.”
After a long moment he blew out his breath. “Damnation. You knew I was bluffing.”
Her heart resumed beating. “Yes, I did.” Thank goodness she could lie to him, apparently.
