Jane forced a smile and tried to look like a young lady who painted kittens and posies in watercolour. There had been no sound from beyond the door since it had closed. Perhaps Papa was believing every word Ivo said and was perfectly happy and reassured as a result. It did seem unlikely, knowing Papa...
The door opened again and her father stood on the threshold. ‘Jane, could you join us, please.’ He looked as though he had received a shock, not necessarily an unpleasant one, but something that had rocked his certainties. Surely after realising that his daughter was capable of painting footmen in the nude—she mentally rearranged that sentence to painting nude footmen—the discovery that she had spent some time in the company of a respectable earl was not so very earthshattering?
She followed him into Violet’s book room. Ivo was standing in front of the little fireplace, looking even more than usually aloof. When she closed the door he gave her the ghost of a smile.
Her father cleared his throat. ‘Lord Kendall has done us the great honour of requesting my permission to address you,’ he said. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence.
‘Permission to address me? Lord Kendall has no need of permission to speak to me, surely?’ And then, as her father made a choking sound and Ivo looked at her quizzically, she realised what he meant. ‘I—He... What? Could I speak to Lord Kendall alone, Papa?’
‘Of course.’ Flustered, her father went out, closing the door with exaggerated care.
‘Ivo? What on earth are you thinking? Papa has not tried to pressure you into this, has he? You knew what I will say.’
The smile was gone. Ivo raked his fingers though his hair. ‘No. I asked his permission before he had the opportunity to express his outrage or to make demands. With your parents here already, knowing that we spent at least one night under the same roof, and those two scandal-mongering old hypocrites finding us all in a huddle, what else can we do? Either we are conspiring together to conceal a scandal or we are a happy family group planning a wedding—I cannot see any other explanation for how this looks, can you?’
‘I can cope with a scandal,’ Jane said.
Ivo made a move as though to reach for her and she took a couple of steps away from him, was brought up short by the desk, turned and paced back. She found she was wringing her hands and made herself stop.
‘I am no one of any consequence and I told you I do not want to marry, so it does not matter if other gentlemen look at me askance.’
Ivo, who had not moved from the fireplace, looked grim.
‘Oh, of course—it will look as though you have ruined me and refused to do the right thing! Well, that is easy to deal with. You have asked Papa, he said yes. I have said no. So, there is no stain on your honour, is there? If anyone should ask me, I will say that I realised that I could never marry a man I did not love and that I am resigned to spinsterhood. Your grandfather will be relieved.’ She frowned at him. ‘Why has he come, anyway?’
‘He came because he wanted to meet you, hardly expecting to find your parents here.
I had told him the full story—it was the first time I can recall him laughing until the tears ran.’
‘What is so amusing?’ Jane demanded.
‘The scene in Bath,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘But it seems that, on reflection, he was impressed by your actions and declared that he is coming to the conclusion that some sturdy gentry blood is just what the family line needs. Apparently a recent encounter with some of my cousins has rattled his belief that the more ancient the name, the better.’ He shifted his position to watch her as she paced away. ‘Your friend Verity married a duke.’
‘Her father is a bishop and they have connections to any number of great families.’ This room was too small. Jane felt trapped, as though at any moment she would be battering herself against bars like a goldfinch in a cage. ‘They are in love,’ she said. ‘That is what matters.’
‘We do not dislike each other, do we?’ Ivo offered.
He did not make the error of declaring warmer feelings, for which she was exceedingly grateful. Nor did he try to touch her again and, strangely, she was sorry for that. Just now it would be nice to be held, to have a broad male chest to lay her head against, warm hands to... She straightened her back and looked him firmly in the eye.
‘I dislike you intensely when you try to stop me doing what I want—what I need to do for my future.’
Ivo laughed. ‘Other than that. We get on, do we not?’
‘It is not the point.’ She was not going to admit that she had thought better of her plan to set up as a portraitist. ‘Nor is it amusing.’
‘There are advantages to being married, you know.’ His voice had dropped, making the words resonate with a meaning she realised she understood very well. ‘I think we could improve on that kiss, for example.’
Jane was not aware that he had moved. Perhaps it was her restless pacing. Now they were very close indeed, close enough to see the grain of his skin, the precise, sharp groove between lip and nose, the thickness of his eyebrows. She could smell his cologne and the starch of his linen and a faint, tantalising hint of masculinity. Hold me.
Chapter Ten
Ivo took her right hand, his thumb tracing over the swelling at the base of her thumb. Shivers ran through her.
‘Shall we see?’
‘What...?’
Stop dithering, you ninny!