She raised watery eyes to him, and he swore under his breath.
“Seriously, Miss Tufton, your tears are entirely misplaced unless you were under the incorrect notion that I was ever going to offer for you.”
“But you invited me to your home for dinner,” she said.
“I invite many people to my home for dinner,” Jasper explained. “But I did not, you’ll recall, invite you to my bedroom.”
She blanched again. “Of course not, nor would I have gone.”
“And now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Sooner rather than later, I would have attempted to seduce you. I would have succeeded. Moreover, after said seduction, which I believe you would have enjoyed as other females have—”
He paused momentarily when she gasped. He had truly chosen badly this time. She was behaving like a child. If he’d ever kissed Miss Tufton in his bedroom the way he’d done with Miss Sudbury, he had a feeling she would have fainted or gone shrieking out of his house.
“After seducing you, I would have broken off with you at any rate, and you would have been in a far worse situation if you’d imagined your heart — or worse, mine — was in any way involved. I assure you, mine is not. Therefore, I contend breaking our association now is a kindness.”
He cocked his head and considered her, from head to toe.
“However, if you insist on lingering, we can probably find an empty room with a sofa, and play this out to the enjoyable end. The outcome will be the same, but we will have had a bit of fun. The choice is yours.”
He crossed his arms and waited. If she was the tiniest bit curious about love-making, he would indulge her, since he’d been feeling randy ever since kissing Miss Sudbury. He would rather be standing there with the blue-eyed minx, but perhaps Miss Tufton was only annoyed she wasn’t going to have a good tupping.
If that was the case, he could certainly satisfy.
Her palm met his cheek with a resounding smack. It was unexpected and showed she had a little gumption at least. It smarted, too, stinging while his soft assailant turned and walked away.
Louisa Tufton was elevated a little in his esteem at that moment. And finally, he was free to look for Miss Sudbury once more. To that end, he returned to the ballroom. Naturally, she was dancing, where any respectable miss ought to be. He’d been foolishly loitering in the hallway, when all she’d done was freshen up and return to the ball. He wished he’d claimed the dance directly before dinner, and then thought perhaps it wasn’t too late.
While she was still partnered elsewhere, he went directly as the crow flies toward Mrs. Zebodar.
“Please excuse my intrusion,” he said, interrupting her conversation with a lady at the next table. “I am wondering whether Miss Sudbury is available for the next dance after this.”
“You wish to escort her to the dinner break?” the matron asked getting right to the point.
He could lie and pretend he didn’t realize that dance was the important one, but decided against equivocation with this woman.
“Indeed, I wish to converse with her in an easier fashion than can occur while dancing.”
“I shall have to sit upon your other side,” she reminded him.
“Naturally,” he agreed. Because nothing would be out of place, neither by number nor by sex in Lady Pritchard’s two vast dining rooms.
“Very well. Miss Sudbury is free for that dance and for dinner.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I shall return anon.”
Walking away, he knew Mrs. Zebodar’s eyes were boring into his back. He also knew if she’d an inkling he’d recently been in the hallway offering to make love to another woman, he wouldn’t be dining with her charge.
Jasper couldn’t help looking forward to claiming Miss Sudbury again. Her expression was priceless when he next appeared.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I believe our next dance isn’t until later.”
To his delight, she actually sounded sorry. Despite her earlier attempt to set him down a peg with her talk of do-nothing noblemen, he had a blossoming hope she was interested in him in return.
“Your chaperone has given her permission for us to dance and to take our dinner together. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Zebodar?”
“Indeed,” the woman said, then turned to Miss Sudbury. “He is an earl, after all,” she added in a whisper that even the next table could hear.
Rather ill-mannered some might say, but that was the way of it. If Jasper hadn’t a title and had already claimed two dances, the chaperone might have refused him a third as well as a dining companion. Yet because he was who he was, nearly all paths were cleared for him.
