Her heart gave a startling, strange lurch.
“How many children will the two of you be wanting?” he asked.
Her composure took a moment to recongregate.
“Ah... well, I hope... there will be enough so that when we all laugh at a joke around the dinner table, it makes a happy sort of racket. And so thatwhen we gather around the pianoforte we can sing harmony. Like at The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
Something so fleetingly warm suffused his expression that she went still. As though he’d been hopelessly charmed. She could not imagine why.
“How many siblings have you now, Keating?”
“Well, I haven’t any,” she said almost apologetically. “There was just the three of us.” She cleared her throat. “My father and mother and me. But now there’s just the two of us. My mother passed away five years ago after an illness.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” he said gently.
“Thank you. That is a kind thing to say. We do miss her very much. Whereas you have many siblings?”
“Oh yes. There were seven of us. I’m in the middle. My parents are no longer with us. Five of us are still alive. We are all exactly as lovable as you might expect.”
She smiled at that. “I expect it’s why you would savor a little quiet time to yourself quite often, from living among so many people.”
She had the sense she’d surprised him somehow.
“Perhaps,” he admitted, shortly. The corner of his mouth lifted, somewhat ruefully, but his eyes were a bit guarded. As though she’d inadvertently uncovered a secret.
“Somewhere in the middle of two and seven children would be just about right, I think,” she said.
“So you’ll want a good income to feed your three and a half or so children,” he said briskly. “This fellow, Mr. Gardner”—he pointed to a name on her dance card—“while by all accounts charming, and altogether fine company at White’s if one isdesperatefor company, is hunting for an heiress because hebet an enormous sum that his high-flyer could beat Lord Ipswitch’s in a race, and he lost.”
“Oh my,” she breathed, startled. “And he seemed pleasant enough. He has a very cheerful face. I’m not one of those. An heiress. I’ve a bit of a dowry, but not the sort that would make anyone’s pulse race. I’m afraid a young man is going to have to like me rather a lot to make up for it.”
“Laying asidethathurdle,” he said matter-of-factly, which made her muffle a shout of laughter with her palms, “what about courtship habits? Do you go in for poetry? Chaps declaiming about blue eyes and flaxen hair and that rot, er, that sort of thing? I feel it only fair to warn you that I’ve heard Babcock”—he pointed to the second name on her card—“writes wagers in the form of poems in the betting books at White’s. Though I suppose a chap has to do something to stand out in a crowd of admirers, and he’s otherwise unobjectionable. Apart from the inadvisable wagers. He also laughs at his own jokes, which—and this is subjective of course—are not funny.”
“If only I had a crowd of admirers! But I don’t know why you should object to poems whenyouare so eloquent.”
She’d said this a little too fervently, she realized, and was instantly abashed.
His slow smile tingled the back of her neck. “Am I, then, Keating?”
She cleared her throat. “That is, don’t you write speeches for a living?”
“Speeches. Not poems. I don’t stand before my fellow MPs there and spout rhymes, Keating. Eloquent, I’ll humbly allow, when I’m at my best, but they’re also practical and purposeful. I began life asa lawyer and I still think like one. Poetry is meant to diffuse and I feel it is best to be direct, to eliminate potential for confusion in matters of—in all matters.”
She stared at him.
He’d stopped himself. He’d been about to say “in matters of romance” or something to that effect, she was certain of it.
She was almostunbearablyintrigued.
What would this directness entail? Baldly issued invitations to climb him?
She shoved the image aside.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, regarding poetry,” she finally managed. “It would be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it, if the poem isn’t good? I think I would find it excruciating because I don’t know if I’d be able to make the right grateful sounds as I’m not very good at pretending. I loathe to hurt anyone’s feelings. But if it’s someone I like very much I would be touched by the effort.”
He listened to this with apparent solemn absorption. “In short, you think poetry best left to the professionals, like Byron.”
“Perhaps I do! And oh my, aren’t his poems lovely? Are you acquainted with him?” It seemed plausible. Lords all seemed to be acquainted.
