Page 18 of The Luckiest Lady in London

Her rebuke stroked him pleasantly. “It isn’t pretty, what I propose, no flowers or valentines. But it will prevent Miss Matilda from ending up in a poorhouse, when the rest of your sisters must scramble to keep a roof over their heads.”

“She will not go anywhere near a poorhouse,” Miss Cantwell replied vehemently. “She is a wonderful girl, and we have relatives who will gladly take her in.”

“And which relative is that? Lady Balfour might not outlive your mother. And even if one of her daughters is willing to take in an invalid who must be looked after around the clock, do you think her husband would not object? Do you really want to count on their kindness when you can instead count on a fortune in pounds sterling and a house built to last?”

* * *

A horrible thought struck Louisa. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Lured otherwise respectable young women in difficult circumstances into prostituting themselves.”

He looked genuinely shocked at her accusation. “Of course not.”

“Why me, then?”

He looked directly into her eyes. “Because I’ve never been wanted so much by a woman who dislikes me so. And I would like to experience that fully.”

God damn his beautiful eyes. And the good Lord really ought to answer for why He so often chose to bestow comeliness upon the most corrupt souls.

“What is wrong with you?” she huffed.

“An aristocrat with degenerate tastes—how shocking,” he murmured, not at all chastened.

She was rendered momentarily speechless by his gleeful embrace of his own wickedness. The Ideal Gentleman, her arse.

“You are possibly the most rational and pragmatic young woman I have ever met,” he went on. “Think about what I have offered—and I do not mean merely security for Miss Matilda. You will not have to endure marriage to a man you do not love. For eleven months out of the year, there will be no man around to disrupt the peace and quiet of your existence. You can travel, if you wish. You can choose to never step out of your house. Or you can spend all your waking hours in the Reading Room of the British Museum.

“What husband will give you freedom of such quality and quantity? What husband will be more generous with the pin money he offers? And what husband will, even if he is perfect otherwise, let you be your calculating and not so truly agreeable self?”

The man spoke with the devil’s own sweet, forked tongue.

“No,” Louisa said again, but with more difficulty this time.

He raised a brow. “Not even for dear Matilda?”

“Dear Matilda would never want me to subject myself to such degradation, especially not for her.”

“You are so sure of her love?”

“I am. And if it should be the case that she does not love me enough, then why should I martyr myself for her?”

He smiled again. “Well said.”

She felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the utter impropriety of the subject of their discussion, but everything to do with his approval of what the world might consider selfishness on her part.

She kept it hidden, that consideration for herself. Even her mother and her sisters did not quite understand it—they all thought her the good, self-effacing daughter who would be glad to do anything for her family.

But he liked her that way. In fact, he seemed to like her far more for her flaws than for any virtues she might possess.

“Then let me speak more to you of your own gains to be had. The house I will settle on you currently fetches rent in excess of five hundred pounds a year. Think of everything you can do with such sums. Or, knowing you, think of the pleasures to be had in watching your bank account grow fatter by the month.”

She would like that, wouldn’t she? She would eagerly compute the month’s various revenues—rents and interests and perhaps dividends from prudent investments—a pleasure she’d never had in all her years of being impoverished. Then she would calculate how much her income exceeded her expenditures and giggle to herself at the cushion of comfort and security she was accumulating.

This time she had to struggle to speak with prim objection. “My lord, the only way a man will sleep with me is by marrying me first. And you are no exception.”

“Tempting, but alas, I have no plans for marriage,” he answered firmly. “However, are you sure I cannot entice you with a core collection to start your own library?”

The merest of trifles, yet she felt as if she had been struck by lightning: All of a sudden she understood the game in a way she hadn’t before. To start, it was a game to him. He asked from her everything that was worth anything, but he had put up nothing more than—how had he phrased it earlier?—an amount that was negligible to his ledgers.

Two, he would not consider her response today to be her final answer. He had, in fact, given himself several weeks before the end of the Season for gradually wearing down her resistance, a process he would enjoy the way the master of Château Lafite Rothschild savored his own best vintage.