“Why not?”
“You just interrupted me, but the answer is because it makes you look like a snout-nose. That is, you are offering an ostentatious display, which no one appreciates. You must always take the woman by her left arm when on the street, keeping her against the building. If you cross the street, and continue in the same direction, then you must switch arms.”
Matthew ran a hand through his hair. In truth, he had never been taught these things. Many of these rules came naturally through interacting politely with others and doing as they did in most cases. Except when he wanted to behave naturally with the men at Boodle’s. Whenever he had been with a willing female, she didn’t care if he whispered wicked French into her ear as he drove into her.
All these stodgy manners seemed to be for people forced together who didn’t really wish to converse or learn anything about one another.
God, he hoped Purity would marry him because he couldn’t imagine the tedium of watching his every word with ladies he was hoping to woo. Light-skirts and mistresses never gave a damn what he said. He nearly said that aloud, too.
Moreover, he would need something stronger than tea if he had to beat all this into his brain.
“Your mind has drifted. One of the very things I said was impolite. I am not going to waste my time any further today.”
“It is simply so much to take in, and as you said, I need to write it down.”
“Why don’t you write down what you remember when you go home, and the next time you’re here, we can review it and continue.”
Was this getting him any closer to winning her?
“I am pleased you will allow me to come back.”
A spark of triumph lit inside him. She must like him a little. Unfortunately, there was no way to steal a kiss today. Even he wouldn’t humiliate her by doing so in front of her maid. More was the pity, too, because he had a notion he could win her better — or at least, easier — with pleasure than in any other way. Matthew didn’t think it would take but a few caresses to have her helplessly willing.
Lady Purity shrugged. “I would help a needy urchin from Spitalfields or a stray dog that wandered in with matted fur.”
She had doused his triumph quite handily.Ouch!
Purity knew she wasbeing hard on him, but Foxford was a slightly ridiculous, albeit mesmerizing man. She would have tobe careful not to fall for him since so far, he made her tingle whenever she was in his presence.
To counter it, she had to embody the harshest teacher she recalled from her brief time at Ponder’s End Boarding School for Young Ladies — namely the master of arithmetic who was as stern and strict as a sergeant — and view Lord Foxford as the densest of pupils. It wasn’t easy. He made her want to laugh, but that would encourage him in his bad behavior.
And he made her want more than that.
When he sat beside her, she thought her body would erupt into flames. Moreover, the tingling along her skin where he rested against her arm and the length of her leg was entirely distracting. It was a wonder she could teach him any manners at all.
But she hadn’t forgotten a moment of his inappropriate conduct outside of her home. Neither what she’d experienced for herself, nor what she’d read in the papers, no matter how loosely disguisedThe Timesmade their reports, by using their coy language of a “foxy tod” or “a rakish reynard,” or “a certain Lord F who might be better at the hunt than most of his counterparts.”
To keep her mind off his handsome visage when she had to look at him, she focused on his left earlobe, the one with the crimp. As far as she’d seen, it was his only flaw.
“How did you get that imperfection on your ear?” she asked, immediately slapping a hand across her mouth. “Again, my apologies. I don’t know what is it about you that makes me forget my years of upbringing.”
His naughty grin didn’t help. It made her stomach do flutter with excitement.
“My poor manners are affecting you, it seems, as much as yours are influencing me,” Foxford mused. “I will let you wonderhow it occurred, my lady. But I will give you a hint. Teeth were involved.”
The blackguard!As she gasped, her insides danced again at the thought of a woman in the throes of passion biting his earlobe.
Glancing at Alice to see if she’d heard, Purity was relieved to see her enjoying an installment ofSweeney ToddorVarney the Vampire, either of which penny dreadful she usually kept rolled up in her apron pocket. Not only was she yards away, she was in a fictional world all to herself.
However, with Lord Foxford staring at her intensely, she absently reached out to snag a biscuit.
Was he taking any of this seriously?
She would test him at the next assembly.
A rap at the door captured her attention, and she was grateful for the interruption.
Their butler, Mr. Dunley, entered with a card on his silver tray. Purity took it and read, noticing Lord Foxford peering over.
