Page 26 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife
Once virtue’s lost, it’s lost for good.
That jewel is gone, whate’er you would.
Athene waited for the tacit admission in her statement to evoke some expression of horror.As she knew from bitter experience, men, especially men of Sir Hugo’s class, prized virtue in women above all else.She twined her hands in front of her and braced to hear him reject her.
But he surprised her.Not for the first time.“Sometimes,” he said, as if she’d made some trite comment about the weather.
She straightened and spoke with greater emphasis.“Sir Hugo, I’ve had a lover.”
He rested against the dining table behind him.His stance couldn’t be more casual.“So have I.Several, in fact, although I wouldn’t exactly say I’m in the petticoat line.You needn’t fear you’re marrying a philanderer, my dear.”
She regarded him with bewilderment.“Don’t be glib.You must know what I’m saying.I’ve had a lover.I’m not a widow.I’ve never been married.Even if I agreed to your absurd proposal, I wouldn’t come to you pure and untouched.”
“Yes, I understood that when you told me you weren’t a virgin.”He folded his arms across his chest.“As I said, I’m not either.”
The urge to box his ears rose.He must be taunting her.Nothing else made any sense.Yet that questing knight’s face maintained an interested expression that conveyed none of the contempt she knew she deserved.Or at least that the world she lived in believed she deserved.
So why in heaven’s name wasn’t Sir Hugo Brinsmead marching out of this room in high dudgeon, offended that ten years ago, she’d shared another man’s bed without benefit of marriage?
“It’s different for men,” she muttered.
“Why?”
“You’re insulting my intelligence,” she hissed as her temper rose.“You know how things work.”
He remained as calm as ever.“I’m disappointed that just because you surrendered to a perfectly natural impulse what I assume was quite a while ago, you’ve decided you have no value.”
His remark rankled.“That’s not what I think.”
“Isn’t it?”He cocked one dark golden eyebrow in her direction.“It sounds like it is.”
She gaped at him, caught wrong-footed.Because while she’d always resisted accepting society’s judgment, she had a horrid suspicion that he might be right.Her family deemed her beyond redemption, and she accepted that condemnation.How frightfully depressing.“But…but that’s just the way it is.”
“Then it shouldn’t be.”That chiseled jaw revealed the first sign of anger.“You’re smart, determined, beautiful.A single mistake – or even something you don’t consider a mistake – shouldn’t discount the magnificent woman you are.”
Magnificent?Not a word that she’d ever associated with herself.The description was too grand for her to take any pleasure from it.“How do you know it’s only one mistake?”
He shrugged.“One lover?Five?Ten?It’s none of my business.If you commit to me, you don’t strike me as the type to go back on her word.”
“You’re…you’re a very unusual man,” she said faintly.Most people wouldn’t call him unusual.They’d call him rattlepated to the point of lunacy.
His response was a dismissive huff.“Because I’ve got the brains to question the world’s lazy thinking?”
“Yes.”Then before she could remind herself that he didn’t need to know about her past, “One.”
Those brilliant blue eyes sharpened on her.“One lover?”
While she didn’t in general blush, heat prickled along her cheekbones.She shifted from one foot to the other as humiliation gnawed at her.“Yes.Ten years ago.When I was seventeen.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
She frowned.“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not.You try too hard to repel all boarders with how you dress and your unapproachable manner.I gathered that you’d made a false step and intend to make no more.”
“My defenses didn’t keep you away,” she retorted with a hint of resentment.Part of her didn’t like that he read her so easily, while part of her liked it very much indeed.Which annoyed her even more.
“I saw straightaway that the prize was worth hacking through the thorny hedges.”
