“We must marry.”
Her brows shot up, and she opened her mouth and then closed it again. “But that is not at all necessary. No one but you and I know—”
“That you were trapped in that stairway with me yesterday? For all of an hour? Alone?”
“With no one the wiser, it might as well not have happened.” Her eyes flicked to the door with a flinch, and she rose and dashed across the room to pull it closed. Leaning against it, she stared at him. “If you don’t mind, Your Grace, I prefer we keep it that way.”
“I realize this.”
Crossing back to the desk, her apron-covered gown hinted at the delicate hourglass shape of her curves. When she didn’t take her seat right away, Addison was obliged to rise as well.
“So, you see—”
“I compromised you yesterday.” The fact was irrefutable. “Honor compels me to do the right thing. Honor compels me to marry you.”
“It might compel you, but that doesn’t mean I will be compelled as well. Theright thing, Your Grace, is to leave matters as they are. I finally have the opportunity to be my own person—to be a teacher! My future is… settled!” She was wringing her hands and shaking her head and, for the first time, Miss Jones appeared flustered. “I cannot—I will not—!”
Odd that it would be a marriage proposal that would beckon such panic.
Surely, she didn’t intend to refuse him a second time?
“And you cannot want this either,” she went on. “I thought I made myself clear yesterday, regarding the nature of my standing. My father was married to another woman, to the baroness,all while he made a family with my mother.Regardless of what my brother or sister-in-law do or say, half of society will never acknowledge me. To be perfectly honest with you, I barely fit in here!”
But he was quite aware of her history. “None of that matters.” The only thing that mattered was honor. It was everything to him. He’d taken advantage of her.
“Oh, but it does. I beg of you, please, leave matters as they are. You were right yesterday when you said my brother purchased my position here. But even so, Miss Primm willingly hired me. If I was to be involved in a scandal of my own, I would live up to all those nasty things that have ever been said about me. And worse than that, I would disappoint everyone who’s ever placed any faith in me.”
She was twisting her hands in front of her almost frantically now, not looking torn or even reluctant as she refused his offer.
Fascinating.
It would appear that Miss Jones was a woman who had no interest in elevating her status through him or any other man. She wasn’t wavering in the slightest.
“I kissed you,” he reminded her.
At this, her eyes flitted around the room as though it was she, this time, searching for some means of escape.
The kiss had been quite memorable. Was that because of the state he’d been in or because of the woman herself?
And was he willing to press his suit in order to find out?
“It was nothing.” She swung her gaze back to him, straightening her back. “Please. Do not mention it to anyone.I beg of you.”
And now, she was irritating him again. Was it because of her adamant disinclination to marry him or because she was thwarting his need to act honorably?
Or was it because she had just declared a kissthat he remembered as distinctly significantto be nothing?
“So you go about kissing gentlemen that you’ve only just met often?”
“No! I mean, it was my first, and you were… upset and I was…”
“You were…?”
“I was… there.”
“So you think that if I was locked in that room with… Miss Primm, or Mrs. Metcalf, I would have kissed either of them? You think I go about randomly kissing impertinent teachers?”
Addison placed his hat on the surface of her desk and stepped around it, closer to where Miss Jones was standing.
