She tried to control her panic. “But not experienced enough to recognize when a woman is a virgin,” she shot back.
“It was outside the realm of possibility. Lefton charges good money for virgins—she wo
uldn’t have sent me one without securing a very large sum in advance.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He shrugged. “Not particularly. I have no interest in the frightened, untried efforts of a novice. Did you know that some men used to believe that taking a virgin would cure them of the clap? Bad luck for both of them.”
“Would you stop talking about prostitutes and . . . disease?”
“Of course, my love. I had no idea you were so squeamish.” He was enjoying this, she thought, though his motives eluded her.
“You don’t really want to marry me,” she said. “Why are you insisting?”
“Perhaps it’s because you dislike the idea so intensely, and I’m a contrary man. Perhaps I simply want to fill my bed. Perhaps I don’t want society to think I’m without honor.”
“Society thinks you murdered your wife. Seducing and then marrying someone who’s already beyond the pale will hardly redeem you.”
“So tactfully put,” he said softly. “I have my own reasons, and you don’t need to know all of them. Are you going to throw that wine at me?”
The last question was added so smoothly that it took her a moment to react. “What?”
“You’ve been considering it most of the evening. The only question is whether you’ll toss the contents or the entire glass.”
“The only question,” she said, “is whether I’ll sit here for one more moment and let you toy with me like a cat with a mouse.”
He threw back his head and laughed, free of his usual mockery. “I have yet to see someone less like a shy little mouse than you, my pet. And I’m hardly a tame pussycat.”
She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if life were closing around her like some evil cocoon and it would either smother her or release her as an entirely new, unrecognizable person. She needed to get away from him, from his long, elegant hands, his stormy gray eyes, the way he watched her. She needed to remember who she was, Miss Sophia Eulalie Russell, the toast of London. Before everything had fallen apart, she thought.
She knocked over her wineglass as she stood abruptly, but fortunately it was empty. She’d lost track of how much she’d had to drink; she knew only it was too much, given her stressful circumstances right now.
He’d risen when she did, polite for a change, and if he felt any concern for her he didn’t show it. “I didn’t . . .” he began.
The door to the dining room slammed open, shutting off his words, and Mrs. Griffiths stood there, trembling with strong emotion. “How dare you!”
Sophie had startled at the abrupt entrance, but Alexander didn’t betray any reaction. “Good evening, Adelia. I hadn’t realized you wished to join us.”
“I don’t wish to join you, you philandering reprobate!” she snapped. “I was told you plan to marry this creature.”
Alexander’s faint smile didn’t falter, but there was a sudden coolness in his eyes. “Miss Russell and I plan to marry as soon as I can arrange it, yes. Did you wish to offer your felicitations?”
“I wish to tell you I won’t have it!” The woman’s face was flushed with anger, and her massive chest heaved. “You cannot marry a cook. It would make me the laughingstock of my friends. This . . . this trollop needs to be sent about her business. Since you can’t keep your hands off her you can set her up in town or something. I refuse to have her on the estate. You will get rid of her immediately.”
Alexander dropped back into his chair, reaching for his wineglass. He barely glanced up at his stepmother. “Sit, Sophie,” he said without inflection.
Sophie wasn’t fooled into thinking this was a casual request. She sat, even though it went against a lifetime of training to sit in front of an older woman.
He glanced up at his stepmother from beneath heavy lids. “First off, my dearest Adelia, you don’t have any friends. And how would marriage to a chef make you the laughingstock of these putative friends, considering you yourself are the daughter of a butcher?”
The woman’s color went from dark pink to purple, and she made spluttering noises of protest as Alexander sailed on, unperturbed by her reaction. “Secondly, you have absolutely no say in whom I have in residence, who I marry, or who I fuck.”
“How dare you—?” she raged again, but Alexander overrode her.
“Thirdly, if you call my wife a trollop, if you treat her with anything but complete respect, I’ll kick you out of this house. You’re here on sufferance, and because I promised my father I’d look after you. You gambled away your widow’s jointure, you lost your house in a game of whist, for God’s sake, and you’ve thrown yourself on my hospitality and sense of duty. But deathbed promises and duty carry me only so far. Do not annoy me in this matter, Adelia, or it will be the worse for you.”
The woman seemed to have her emotions in check, but there was a dark, calculating expression on her features. “You seem to forget we’re a household in deep mourning, Alexander. A wedding is out of the question.”