“I have guarded against vulgarisms,” he stated when she didn’t speak. “I no longer fidget with my gloves, nor my pocket watch. I appear interested in everything those around me say even when I would rather stick my head in a barrel of pickled herring than listen to another insipid word. I don’t interrupt, and I use no French affectations.”
She continued to look ahead. “You have a good memory, and you mimic well, like a trained monkey.”
“Argh!”he shouted over the side of the bridge, letting his yell of frustration blow out across the water.
This startled her, but in an instant, he was walking calmly alongside again.
“I never needed your help,” he vowed. “It was simply a way to be close to you when you wouldn’t let me near.”
“Do you remember why I wouldn’t let you near me, Lord Perfect Manners? Because of your reputation,” she reminded him. “Are you saying you are not a libertine either?”
He hesitated, perhaps unwilling to accept the unflattering label.
“I suppose I was,” Foxford allowed at last, “but I am no longer. I have had no association with any other female since the day we met.”
“Another lie. What about the trio of women at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens?”
“Surely you are joking,” he said. “I will speak of them one last time and then never again. Quinn came up to me, trailing those females who were hoping for some blunt from a willing gentleman.”
“And?” she prompted.
“And I was not willing,” he said flatly. “That covey of sad cattle was not remotely the class of women, not even of courtesans, with whom I would interact. Frankly, I’m insulted.”
Was he serious?
“Moreover, I was only at Vauxhall hoping to see you. To that end, I looked all evening, but the place has gone downhill, as I told you it had. Even the harlots were the seediest. Frankly, I would recommend you no longer go to Vauxhall.”
“I see,” she said.
“Is that all you can say? We’ve filleted and exposed my doings as if I were a freshly caught codfish. And all you can say is, ‘I see.’”
“Did you intend for us to be discovered at Syon Park?” she asked, dreading the answer.
For if he had truly wanted her from the beginning, he might have become tired of waiting. His goal had been accomplished with one wretchedly wonderful kiss.
He halted. Someone behind them knocked into him and then, after a few choice curses, moved around them.
“Hey, there! Mind your mouth around a lady,” Foxford called after the stranger, who kept moving, perhaps more quickly at the baron’s sharp tone. Then surprisingly, Foxford took her arm and began to walk again.
“I swear to you, I did not have any hand in getting us discovered. I would never do such a dastardly thing. I cannot, however, blame you for thinking the worst of me. It has come to my understanding recently that I have somewhat of a bad reputation.”
It was Purity’s turn to stop dead, yet she managed to keep moving.Had he only just learned that?It was laughable if he hadn’t realized the extent of his notoriety. Her steps faltered, but she corrected herself and let him continue.
“My plan has been to woo and win you by fair means. Granted, it has gone more slowly than I would have liked, and now, it has charged ahead like a stallion. Still, I promise you, I would never have wished for your reputation to suffer. I know what it means to you.”
Did he?she wondered.Could any man, let alone a handsome, privileged cove of a man, understand?
“Fine words but too late,” she reminded him. “The newspaper and, I suppose, its readers think as you once did — that my name is a silly name and now an ironic one, too. I am considered impure and loose. It would seem we became engaged to no avail.”
“If I could do anything to change what has occurred, I would. I believe our engagement, long enough to show that you are not ... well, showing, if you understand my meaning, will help restore your good name. That, and your refusal to hide indoors.”
“That was precisely what I intended to do,” she confessed.
“I guessed as much, and it’s exactly the wrong thing. You have never had to face anything like this, but I would urge you to go about your normal life. If you disappear, you will appear guilty.”
“But I am,” she said. “Weare.”
“We are not guilty of what they think. Not yet,” he added, so softly she almost didn’t hear him.
