Page 7 of To Swoon and to Spar
“I doubt it.”
He inclined his head to the side, studying her. “You don’t stand upon niceties, do you, Miss Spencer?”
At these words, she stiffened. Everything seemed less easy between them now that they were seated—when they were walking, with their gazes focused ahead, she had not felt the weight of his attention like a burden on her shoulders. Sitting on this bench beside him was something else entirely. She kept her eyes downcast, but that only served to draw her attention to the fact of his leg so close to her on the stone bench that it was brushing against the edge of her skirts.
“I do not believe in niceties, my lord.”
He barked out a surprised laugh, and she cast a quick glance sideways. He was even more handsome when he laughed.
She had not been prepared, upon entering that drawing room, to find him appealing. She had supposed, of course, that he was not terribly elderly—her guardian was hardly in his dotage, so the viscount must be somewhat young. But for a man to be willing to agree to—or at least consider—marriage to a woman he’d never met? She’d naturally assumed there was something horribly wrong with him.
Perhaps, she imagined, he’d been disfigured in a tragic accident? Or, even better, during the war? If she allowed her imagination to run wild with romantic possibilities, she went so far as to envision a handsome face with a horrible scar on one half, perfectly invisible when viewed in profile from the other side, so that the viewer would gasp in horror when he turned to reveal his true countenance.
(Jane was very fond of novels.)
She had not been prepared to find herself face-to-face with a young, fit viscount—one who would surely have little difficulty convincing other, prettier, more eligible ladies to wed: ladies of rank and fortune. Which had led Jane to her previous conclusion: He was desperate to get his house back.
This, with regard to her long-term aims, was unfortunate. But it did mean that her utter inability to make any semblance of polite conversation shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance to matrimony.
“Well, Miss Spencer, if you do notbelievein niceties, then I’ll spare you any attempts at bland observations regarding the weather and get to the point: I’d like to marry you but will do so only if you are willing.” Despite his laughter a moment ago, there was no trace of amusement in his voice; he merely sounded… determined.
“I’ve been working to build my personal fortune for years in the hope that my uncle would one day sell Trethwick Abbey to me,” he continued, “and if I must marry you to convince him, I’m more than prepared to do so.” He stated this matter-of-factly, his voice emotionless; in that instant, Jane wondered if he’d ever entertained visions of a more romantic proposal of marriage. But then he did not seem the sort of man to harbor romantic fantasies. “But I won’t go through with it if you’re not amenable to it—my desire for a house and a parcel of land shouldn’t come at the expense of the happiness of a lady I do not even know.”
This, Jane had to grudgingly admit, was surprisingly decent—more decent than anything she’d expected to hear from a man who, if his uncle were to be believed, spent most of his time at the card tables. Was that theworkhe alluded to? she wondered. If he considered playing a game of vingt-et-un to be work, then she somehow thoughthe wouldn’t last long on a wet Cornish hillside with tenants and sheep and actual problems to manage.
“I will marry you, my lord,” she said. “As I find living with your uncle to be rather…” She trailed off, searching for the correct adjective. “Unpleasant.”
This was nothing more or less than the truth. Mr. Bourne had never been unkind to her, exactly, but after a childhood spent without the constant presence of a parent, she’d been surprised by how much she disliked living in a house with a male authority figure swooping about, prone to dropping into a room at a moment’s notice to make some sort of demand. She had imagination enough to suppose that there were certain people with whom it might be entirely tolerable—enjoyable, even—to share a home (although, in truth, her experience so far with the male sex did not make her overly optimistic about the odds of enjoying living with a husband).
But Mr. Bourne, with his constant, small intrusions—acting surprised and annoyed to find Jane in a room he had entered; relaying messages to her for the staff, rather than deigning to speak to them himself; demanding to know why she had not yet befriended any of the girls in the village, as though this were some sort of crime (and having made no effort to offer any introduction that might have eased her way)—well. It—he—rapidly became bothersome. Indeed, he became all the more bothersome the longer Jane spent at Trethwick Abbey, because with each day that passed, an undeniable truth had become clear: She loved it there. But living there with Mr. Bourne was hardly how she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
And the moment she had come to realize the truth of these two facts, entirely in opposition to each other, was the moment the first threads of her plan had begun to form.
She raised her eyes from her lap, still avoiding Lord Penvale’s gaze, which she could feel on her face. “I do not have an expectation of romance,” she said stiffly. “All I would ask of you is that I don’t have to spend any more time in town than is necessary.”
“You truly do hate it here,” he said mildly. It was an observation rather than a question, but she nodded nonetheless.
“I do.”
“Have you ever been here other than on this visit?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “no.”
“I see. And has it occurred to you that you might like it more some other time of the year? When it’s a little less… gray?”
“It has not,” she said, more fiercely than she intended. If there was one thing she despised, it was when someone tried to tell her that her opinion was wrong. “Because an improvement in the weather would mean that London was overrun with a passel of aristocrats, and I’d be forced to make polite conversation endlessly, and—”
“And I’ve already witnessed how much you enjoy polite conversation, yes.” There was a smile in his voice; despite his seemingly genuine concern for her consent to their marriage, she could not otherwise find much to admire in a man whose every statement seemed laced with some faint amusement—amusement which she strongly suspected was at her expense. At that moment, she felt particularly keenly the gap—not just in age but in experience and social standing as well—that stretched between them. He went on, “All right. Your demands seem reasonable enough. There may be one factor that will complicate things a bit, however.”
“Oh?”
“I’m a viscount.”
She rolled her eyes, turning to look fully at him. “I noticed,” shesaid waspishly. “Did you somehow miss the fact that I have referred to you as ‘my lord’?”
“No,” he said, exasperation creeping into his voice at last. “And you can stop with the ‘my lord,’ by the way—just call me Penvale. It’s what everyone else does.”
“All right,Penvale,” she said with exaggerated patience. “What is your complication?”
