Page 69 of Where the Heart Leads
He moved closer, until he stood before her looking down into her face, but he didn’t touch her. “However, like all subjects, if you truly want to understand, in depth, with all the ramifications, you have to be eager and willing to learn.”
There was a very clear question in those last words. Penelope fought not to let her eyes narrow; she was far too fly to the time of day not to realize what he was doing.
However…
She did want to know. A great deal more.
Holding his gaze, she smiled, then swung about and headed for the stairs leading down. “I’ll think about it.”
Barnaby watched her retreating back through narrowing eyes, then started to follow—as ever in her wake. As she reached the stairs, he said, “The printing works is running our notices tonight—they’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”
She paused at the head of the stairs. Over her shoulder, she said, “We should discuss with Griselda how to distribute them.”
He halted behind her. “I’ll call for you in Mount Street at nine o’clock. We can pick up the notices and go on to her shop.”
“Excellent.” With an inclination of her head, she started down the narrow stairs.
He remained at their head, watching her descend—reminding himself that letting her go was a vital part of his greater plan.
As the wee hours of the night waxed and waned, Penelope tossed and turned in her bed, in her bedroom in Mount Street—such familiar surroundings she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t clear her mind and fall asleep.
She was such a disciplined thinker, she normally had no difficulty at all.
It was his fault, of course.
He’d set a particularly fascinating hare running in her mind, and she couldn’t stop following it.
Sitting up, she thumped her pillow, then flung herself back down and stared at the ceiling.
That he was deliberately tempting her was beyond doubt. As for the price of the knowledge he was dangling, carrotlike, before her, she knew well enough what that was. Yet given she was already twenty-four, and had no desire for marriage, having long ago decided that, with its concordant restrictions, it wouldn’t in any way suit her, then what was she keeping her virginity for? In light of what she had now come to regard as her unacceptable ignorance on the subject of desire, let alone passion, it seemed entirely appropriate she trade it—useless thing that it otherwise was—for the knowledge she now craved.
Added to that was the undeniable fact that he was the only male ever to have impinged on her consciousness in such a way—the only man who had ever succeeded in starting that aforementioned hare leaping across the fields of her mind.
Halting her thoughts at that point, she mentally looked over them. Assessed, evaluated. All of the above seemed logically unassailable; her reasoning thus far was sound.
The point that was rendering her too restless to sleep was the next step.
The notion of simply telling him yes, and blithely consigning her education in that sphere to him and his male whims, did not appeal. Not in the least.
She had no great opinion of male brains. Not even his, which seemed superior to the general run. She strongly suspected he did not have, or at least was not aware of it if he had, a logical basis for his desire for her—not beyond desire itself.
No—while she saw no reason not to go forward, albeit on her own terms, she certainly wouldn’t be doing so in the misguided expectation that he—a male—would be able to fully elucidate his reasons for desiring her.
Luckily, learning his reasons wasn’t her sole intellectual goal. Even more than his reasons, she wanted to know, to understand and comprehend, her own.
She had to know what made herwant,what it was in his kisses, in his embrace, that stirred her to want so much more. She needed to learn what fueled her own desire.
That was her principal goal.
And Barnaby Adair was the man who could, and would, lead her to it.
The one real danger hadn’t, yet, raised its head. Marriage. As long as matrimony remained absent from their equation, all would be well.
She mulled over that point. Considered it from various angles. Accepted that he might feel compelled, having seduced her, as he would see it, to offer for her hand, and even when she refused, continue to insist, seeing the matter as impinging on his honor, a subject over which men of his ilk had a tendency to be particularly pigheaded.
But she knew how to counter that; even if he did try to introduce the baneful prospect of marriage, she felt confident she would be able to prevail, to take a contrary stand and sway him to her way of thinking. If the matter arose, she would explain her views; she was sure he—being a logical, rational man—would understand her stance, and ultimately accept it.
That said…her position in any such discussion would be immeasurably strengthened ifshewas the one who instigated their affair. Not acquiesced to but dictated—that was obviously the most sensible way forward for them both. She needed to take charge and define their relationship as an affair, plain and simple, permitting no hint of matrimony to creep in and confuse the issue.
