Page 36 of The Luckiest Lady in London

“Excuses, excuses, Louisa. Were I less mindful of my reputation, you would have been robbed.”

Hardly, when she would have given him the eleven pounds, eight shillings she’d studiously scraped together for emergencies, just so he didn’t withdraw his offer.

Still, five thousand pounds a year, just for her. She wanted to laugh: She was now her own rich man.

Suddenly she remembered her deception. “Goodness gracious. There was something I was going to let you find out for yourself after the wedding. But at five thousand pounds a year, my conscience won’t let me keep quiet anymore.”

He cast her a sidelong look. “So your conscience was fine at eight hundred a year?”

“Did you really think my conscience was the sort that couldn’t be told to keep quiet when only eight hundred a year was a stake?”

“True, morally upstanding you are not. So what dastardly secret am I going to find out now?”

Was that fondness in his voice? Why did she feel as if she were slowly melting? “I employ an array of bust improvers.”

He shrugged, unperturbed. “So do at least half of the ladies in London. God does not make that many perfectly waspish figures.”

“Well, my bust improver doesn’t so much improve my bust as create one where none exists.”

He glanced at her bosom. “So how much of that is actually yours?”

“Twenty-five percent. Thirty-five at most.”

His eyes widened.

“I apologize!”

“Only sorry to be caught, I see.”

“Well, I always did plan to make up for it.”

“How?” Was that a barely suppressed smile in his voice? “Isn’t it a bit late for you to develop a bigger pair?”

“I once heard Lady Balfour talk about her brother-in-law’s mistress. She said the woman was completely flat-chested, but was willing to take part in all kinds of unnatural acts.”

He made the sound of choked laughter. “Sorry, go on.”

“So I thought…” She pulled at her collar. “I thought if I would consent to unnatural acts, then perhaps it would not be so difficult to achieve my husband’s forgiveness in this matter. And, well, you are most certainly the sort to incline toward unnatural acts.”

“Am I?”

“Are you not?” She couldn’t tell whether she was asking out of hope or apprehension.

He didn’t answer her. “Suppose you had become engaged to Mr. Pitt instead. Would you have just remained silent on the matter?”

“I would have started putting on progressively less exaggerated bust improvers and hoped that he didn’t notice. But if he did, there were always the unnatural acts.”

“He might never again believe anything you say the rest of your life.”

She was hardly worried about Mr. Pitt. “What about you?”

“I have never trusted a word you said, since the very beginning.”

“I do tell the truth sometimes,” she pointed out, half pouting. “Besides, now that I have ensnared myself a rich lord and confessed my sins regarding my undergirding, I have no more lies to tell.”

“Is that what you think marriage is, a hotbed of honesty and transparency?”

“Well, no…”