Her mouth twisted. “No? Then what more would you like? My name? My obedience? You understand full well I have no desirefor marriage, Jasper! I told you so before, and I shall tell you again—I will not be driven to the altar.”
“I do not drive you,” he returned, frustration roughening his tone. “I entreat you.”
“Then entreat no further. For my answer is no. I bested you, Jasper Deverell,” she pressed on, breathless with the force of her indignation. “I claimed my forfeit, and I triumphed. You were undone, and I gloried in it. That is all. Do not cloak the aftermath in vows and noble speeches, for I will not wear the chain!”
“Lottie, will you listen—”
“No, I shall not! You are not my gaoler, nor my saviour. I owe you nothing.”
With one last blazing look, she swept from the chamber, leaving Jasper staring after her, feeling rather dumbfounded. He sank back against the pillows, dragging a hand over his face as the door closed softly behind her, which was somehow worse than a slam.
What a damned fool he was. He knew better.
Langley told him, with that insufferably knowing air, that if he wished to befriend Charlotte Tolliver, he ought simply to marry her. And like a simpleton, Jasper had taken the advice to heart, though he knew better—God help him, heknew.
Charlotte Tolliver had as much inclination for chains as a wild hawk for the falconer’s glove. And now… now he had lost her.
The loss of what, precisely, he could not be persuaded to confess. A friendship? Possibly. Yet what friendship left a man restless at her smile, or unmoored at the lightest touch of her hand? What friendship had driven him to this ruinous longing?
No—it was something far more than friendship, and infinitely more perilous. That he should admit he loved her was laughable. He would sooner wrestle with angels than own such folly aloud, even in the privacy of his own mind.
Far easier and safer to say only this: he had been fond of the game, and now he had lost it.
“Well done, Deverell,” he murmured to the empty room. “Brilliantly played.”
Chapter 31
Lottie Tolliver went through the whole of Sunday without uttering so much as a syllable. Her mother was gratified beyond measure, and the Duke of Morleigh scarcely marked it, being too busy glowering at everyone equally, but her father—dear, fussy, eccentric Papa—fidgeted with his spectacles, peered at her over his newspaper, and at last ventured to ask whether she was feverish.
“I am not ill,” she said crisply.
“Then why this vow of silence?” he pressed, lowering his paper. “It is unnatural, my girl. Your mama may rejoice in it, but I find it positively sinister, A Tolliver girl quiet is a Tolliver girl plotting.”
“Plotting?”
“Oh yes—something is afoot! What is it, my dear? Cards? Dice? An elopement plan involving a hot-air balloon? If so, you must let me know at once. I should like to place a wager on the wind direction.”
“Do stop being ridiculous, Papa.”
“Ridiculous?” He widened his eyes. “My dear girl, it is my singular talent. But—ah!—I spy the truth. It is about that fellow, is it not? Deverell.”
At his name, her jaw clenched. “I should sooner swallow the billiard balls than endure his company again.”
Lord Tolliver’s blinked, then chuckled into his cravat. “Have you quarrelled with him, my dear?”
“Quarrelling would imply I care for the man. I do not.”
Her father looked at her gravely, then steepled his fingers in a manner so absurdly solemn that Lottie might have laughed had she been in a laughing humour. “Charlotte Anne,” he said, “I hope you know that men are fools.”
“I have gathered as much.”
“If this Deverell has done something to vex you, it is almost certain he believes he was being admirable. We rather excel at that, blundering with confidence. I myself proposed to your mother thinking only of her dimples. Thank Heaven she accepted. Imagine where I should be if she had not. Alone. Entirely without dimples. Forced to dine with my sister Belinda for eternity.”
Lottie arched her brows. “Pray, who spoke of proposals, Papa?”
“Did you not? No? Ah. Well, perhaps not aloud. But it is writ upon your brow, my girl, as plain as the morning sun.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Consider Deverell’s dimples, and you may change your mind.”
“Dimples are no substitute for sense, Papa. A man may smile like a cherub and behave like a complete donkey.”
