He had opened his mouth to form a rebuttal but snapped it closed. Staring into her eyes, so pure and clear like a late-August sky, he couldn’t simply brush away her words, nor lie to her.
“Well?” she asked. She almost seemed to want him to deny being a rake.
Hm. Maybe she hoped the gossips were lying. Perhaps she wanted to form an attachment if he were not as bad as the papers said. On the other hand, she might be titillated by his reputation and thus hoped it were true.
“You are correct, Miss Sudbury. We cannot really discuss this matter.” And he went silent for a few twirls around the floor before recalling she was the one who’d committed the grave infraction and enteredhisbedroom. And if his hunch was correct, she’d stolen from him.
“I must bring up the other night at my home, specifically where I encountered you.”
She stiffened in his arms.
“Must you?” she asked. “For having since learned of your character, I now feel foolish in having hoped to take a handkerchief. In fact, a token from you is the last thing any young woman of genteel breeding who cares about her reputation would wish to have in her possession.”
She had insulted him.He was an earl, by God!Yet she considered him no longer worth trapping into marriage, not that he would let himself be trapped, but still!
“Imagine if I had shown someone such a thing as a pocket square withyourmonogram,” she continued. “I would be ruined. Why, I’m glad this dance is nearly at an end. My good name is undoubtedly at risk for allowing myself to waltz even once with you.”
She was an evil shrew,Jasper decided. She would be lucky if he deigned to ruin her blasted reputation! Good name, indeed!Who had ever heard of her?
They lapsed into silence for the duration of the dance, which he couldn’t help noticing she accomplished impeccably. Moreover, her sweet orange blossom and jasmine scent, floating around them as they danced, had become most intoxicating.
When he led her from the floor, back toward her watchful chaperone, he had to ask, “If you were not born and bred for a London Season, how is it you dance so well?”
She gave a charming dip of her shoulder in response. “We are not all farmers in the country, sir.”
True enough!Apparently, there were women out there in the wilds beyond the city who could catch the eye of an earl, or like this one, who had his complete attention. Although from some of her remarks, her nature might be waspish, in which case he would want nothing more to do with her.
“What does your family do?” he asked, thinking it a safe enough topic.
“What does my familydo?” she repeated, as if not understanding his import. “That’s a strange question considering most of the people in this room do absolutely nothing, nor do their families. Mere boils on the face of life, as it were.”
Again, she had rendered him speechless. She’d also paused halfway between her chaperone and the guests who were taking up partners ready for the next dance.
“I mean, look around you, sir. Or even in the mirror. What does the nobility do besides collect rents to keep them in silks and sparkling baubles?”
She glanced at his cravat, upon which was affixed a ruby pin. He felt soiled somehow, as if wearing even the smallest jewel made him complicit in some extraordinary scheme of laziness and deceit.Beyond waspish, she was intolerably venomous!
Clearing his throat, he decided he’d best put her in her place.
“I assure you, many of the people in this room do a great deal.” He glanced around him, seeing the youngest and most frivolous among them. “Well, maybe nottheseparticular people, but in many of the rooms in Mayfair and in London proper, there are industrious folk, I assure you. For the nobility are also statesmen and lawmakers and ... and—”
“Men of business?” she offered helpfully, although they both knew a titled gentleman would rather eat his own arm than say he was in the business class.
“Stewards of the land,” he finished.
“But not farmers,” she said. “As I said rent collectors. As for statesmen, I saypish!”
“Pish?”This was the strangest conversation he’d ever had in a ballroom.
“Yes. Sitting around in the Palace of Westminster, holding your precious parliamentary sessions, deciding how the rest of must conduct ourselves and how much tax we must pay to the crown’s coffers.”
He frowned. She had a very low opinion of nobility to be sure.
“What about the wars?” he asked, and his tone had become a little gruff. After all, he’d lost a few friends whom he’d met in his school days at Harrow and at All Souls College at Oxford. He’d been one of the lucky ones to escape the wars with all his limbs and his senses intact.
“I will give the noblemen their due in that regard,” Miss Sudbury said. “I’m certain the wealthy officers make as good a target in their scarlet coats as any foot soldier, and being high upon a horse, perhaps even more so.”
Was she mocking him and his comrades-in-arms?
