Shrewish? Why, that spoiled, disloyal boy. “I prefer being called direct. As a gentleman, I am sure you prefer that word too.”
“Of course. Allow me to be direct in turn, so you can be about your day’s business.” He leaned forward and set his arms on his knees. It brought his fine face quite close to her. “You know your grandmother’s plan to have me marry Lady Emilia.”
“I do.”
“I have decided to decline the offer.”
It was all she could do not to cheer with relief. Thank heavens someone in this sorry business was using some sense.
“I have decided that you will suit me, and the dowager’s plan, much better.”
A stillness rang in the chamber. It took a good long moment for her mind to absorb what he had said. Even then it sounded too bizarre to be accurate.
“Your sister is too young for me, and whatever settlement is offered with her, it will never be as good as a wife with her own property and income.”
Good heavens.
She gathered her wits, but it took some serious groping through her stunned reaction. “Have you even met Emilia?”
“No, but it does not signify. I am quite sure that while she is lovely, she is not the bride for me.”
“How can you say that when you have not even—”
“I know.”
“You had better know differently, and quickly, because I am not available instead.”
He sat back in his chair, not the least impressed by her definitive rejection. “It is understandable that you are surprised by my proposal. I am confident that you will come around, however.”
Too agitated to sit, she stood and glared at the presumptuous idiot. Regrettably that brought him up too. Instead of what had been a satisfactory staring down, she now had to look far up at a face that hovered over her own.
“I heard no proposal. I heard an edict. I cannot imagine what gives you cause to think I would obey it. You are the last man I would marry, should I marry at all. Indeed, my father would turn over in his grave if I even considered the idea. Now, sir, I thank you for your call, but I must be about my day’s business. Already I will be late.”
She pivoted and strode out of the drawing room and down the stairs. She retrieved her package from the footman and headed outside. She sensed the duke on her heels the entire way.
Her hackney coach waited behind the duke’s carriage.
He gazed hard at that hackney. “Why are you not using the family’s equipage?”
“I chose not to.” She descended the stone steps and aimed for her coach.
He walked alongside her. “You are going to a secret assignation, I assume. One that you prefer the family servants not know about. There is no other explanation for using a hackney instead of a family carriage.”
She truly wanted to hit him with her package for saying that within hearing of the footman waiting to hand her into the coach.
She settled herself on the seat while the footman closed the door. The duke rested his forearm on the window’s edge and waited while the servant walked away.
“I will not demand an explanation now,” he said. “However, if you are going to meet a man, that liaison must end immediately, now that we are engaged.”
She stuck her face to the window. “We. Are. Not. Engaged.” She was almost yelling by the end of it, but the coach had rolled away by then, and only the air heard her.
* * *
A half hour later Clara stood at a library’s desk in a house on Bedford Square. Spread out on the desk were stacks of papers and one blank sheet.
“I think we have enough for another issue ofParnassus, Althea,” she said. “We can talk to the pressmen this afternoon about the schedule.”
Althea bent her blond head over the stacks. She fingered one very small one. It consisted of the poems that their journal would publish. “You have included Mrs. Clark’s sonnet, I see. I am glad.”
