Distantly, an alarm bell clanged in the back of Fitz’s mind.He shook his head like a punch-drunk bareknuckle boxer and attempted to throw off the stupefying effects of Miss Quick’s beauty.He needed his wits about him.
Beauty or not, Fitz knew what it meant when a woman brought up his bachelor state within mere moments of scraping an acquaintance.Not that it had happened before—most ladies, in Fitz’s experience, seemed to beat about the bush quite a bit more than Miss Quick, who appeared to subscribe to the notion that name equaled destiny.
But it all amounted to much the same thing.In this ballroom, on the Marriage Mart, Fitz was not the hunter.He was the fox.It was not a sensation he relished, and it made him a trifle snappish.
“You are to be commended for your directness, I’m sure.”Fitz bowed slightly, the angle carefully calculated to indicate coolness.
She blinked those extraordinary eyes.Her lashes were darker than her hair, he noticed, but still quite pale.It gave her an otherworldly look.
“Why?Because I mentioned your looks?I beg your pardon if I’ve made you self-conscious.It’s only your face, you see, and your general…” She gave a vague wave that seemed to encompass all of him at once.“Your general everything.I was caught off guard.It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
Fitz felt once more as though he were sinking beneath the chaotic, rushing waters of the brook, but this time a delicate, gloved hand was holding him under.“No, not about my looks,” he choked out.“At least, it’s not entirely the done thing to tell a gentleman you fancy his face, but it’s more flattering than not.I meant the comment about my eligibility for marriage.”
“Oh!”She looked intrigued, as though her fingers itched for a pencil so she could take notes.“Ought I to have pretended not to know?I didn’t realize it was a shameful secret.”
Amused, and also feeling a bit as though he was losing his mind, Fitz had to bite his lip against a smile.He didn’t want to encourage her.“I’m not ashamed.Indeed, reaching almost my thirtieth year without having been snaffled by a matchmaking mama is an accomplishment of which I am justifiably proud.”
“You’re an inspiration to all your friends and relations, I’m sure.”The wench had the audacity to pat his arm patronizingly.“But I did not ask Mrs.Lamington to introduce us so that we could discuss your appearance, nor your chances of succumbing to matrimony.Let me set your mind at ease: handsome or not, I have no interest in marrying you.”
“No?”Against his will, Fitz was beginning to rather enjoy this bizarre interaction.“In that case, I’m charmed to make your acquaintance.If your purpose is not marriage, then to what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?”
“You misunderstand.Marriage is, in fact, my purpose.”Her violet gaze sharpened, sending a bolt of something alarming—and electrifying—down Fitz’s spine.“Tell me about your father, the Marquess of Huntingdon.Lord Alfred.He is a widower, is he not?”
* * *
Even with his jaw dropped and his gray eyes going first comically wide, then suspiciously narrow, Lord Fitzwilliam was unfairly and inconveniently handsome.
Somehow, even after all the time she’d spent charting his progress across the ballrooms of London, it had caught her unawares.She couldn’t believe she’d just blurted it out like that.Luckily he seemed barely to have noticed.She supposed a man that handsome must be quite used to hearing about it from every lady he met.
She frowned, not altogether pleased with the idea.
Lord Fitzwilliam was frowning now, too, his affably handsome face hardened into a sternness that sent an unwelcome pulse of delicious awareness through her belly.
She thought she’d accounted for every variable when she conceived of her plan, including Lord Fitzwilliam’s personality.But she hadn’t accounted for the difficulties of managing her own attraction to him, once all of his warm, encompassing attention fell upon her.
It was one thing to take note of a man’s objectively pleasing countenance and other physical characteristics generally deemed to denote attractiveness, such as long, strongly muscled limbs and a deep chest.It was quite another to allow one’s precious objectivity to waver!
To find oneself actually affected.In a physical sense.It was mortifying.And deeply inconvenient, considering her plans.
Which weren’t going well, if the fierce expression Lord Fitzwilliam turned on her now was anything to judge by.
“The Marquess of Huntingdon is, indeed, a widower,” he informed her coldly, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height and staring down that lovely straight nose.“And as you have seen fit to be uncommonly blunt with me, I will do you the courtesy of responding in kind.My father may be the bane of my existence in many respects, but he is a good man.A good father.And I won’t stand idly by while a…a…an adventuress sets her cap at his fortune and title in his twilight years!”
“Adventuress!”Caroline’s attention snagged on the word.“I quite like that.”
When his face darkened even further, like a storm blowing in over the cliffs of St.Kilda, Caroline hurriedly adopted a more placating tone.“Not that I am one!Not in the sense you mean, at least.”
“When a young lady as beautiful as you, who could have any gentleman she crooked her finger at, expresses interest in a man more than twice her age—you will pardon me, but it doesn’t take a brilliant mind to deduce the source of her interest.Or do you intend to claim love at first sight?”
Caroline found it surprisingly difficult to ignore the tingle she felt at the knowledge that he found her beautiful.A bit giddy, her rapid-firing brain leapt over the first part of what he’d said to seize upon the concept that most interested her.“Love at first sight!What a fascinating notion.I would need to review the available evidential studies and research, but I do not believe its existence has been conclusively proved.Although in nature, one often finds that the courtship and mating rituals of the animal kingdom, while complex and fascinating, tend to be of shorter duration than those of humans.So perhaps there is something in it.”
His dark brows drew together in a look she’d encountered quite often when she spoke about her studies with people outside her field: bemused confusion.
A prickle of embarrassment singed the tips of her ears.Caroline hadn’t spent much time in what was termed Polite Society; a few days dining and socializing with the upper classes of Lisbon or Vienna or Rome, while her father secured permission or funding for one research study or another, was the extent of her experience.And that had been quite enough for her, since most well-bred gentlemen had little or no understanding of her interests, and even less of a desire to hear about them.It seemed London society was no different.
“I apologize for straying from the topic at hand,” she said, a little stiffly.“Your father?—”
“Not here,” he muttered, glancing around the crowded ballroom.Taking her by the arm, he skillfully maneuvered them to a secluded corner, so smoothly Caroline had no time to protest.Not that she wished to, precisely.
