“Once or twice. Why?”
“I’m going to need your help dressing.” She studied him through narrowed eyes. “Whose corset did you lace?”
He laughed that she sounded jealous. He was also slightly baffled that she would be. “That would be my business.”
Fanny’s eyes narrowed even more, clearly unhappy that he didn’t provide her with an answer. That was just too bad. If she wanted to keep him at arm’s length, he would do the same. She couldn’t have everything her way.
He snatched up her damp corset, but she handed him another dry one instead. “Don’t lace me so tight that I cannot breathe. I need breath to give Wilks a piece of my mind.”
“As you wish, my lady,” he replied with a short bow that he hoped would irritate her.
Chapter 13
Lord Wilks sauntered into their meeting twenty minutes later than Fanny had expected him to arrive. She was annoyed with him, and with the conversation she’d just had with Jeremy. The way they’d parted had left a bad taste in her mouth. One coupling did not make him privy to all of her business, even if making love to him had been better than she’d ever dreamed.
“My dear Lady Rivers, do forgive my tardy arrival,” Wilks drawled.
She would not. She would secretly hold that against him for years to come. She was a busy woman who knew her own mind and held private grudges. Fanny regarded him standing in the doorway, her jaw clenching momentarily before relaxing. The sooner this farce of a meeting was over and done with the better. She looked Wilks over but did not see any papers in his hands. “Lord Wilks.”
He glanced around the room, one brow arching. It was just the two of them. Fanny had not wanted any witnesses to her embarrassment. Especially not Jeremy, though she was touched by his concern. “I’m so glad you could see me. Alone too,” he drawled again.
Fanny regarded him warily now. “What is it that you want?”
“We’ll get to that.”
She glanced across to the empty chair opposite. “Please, won’t you sit.”
He made a circuit of the room and then swooped to sit close beside her. “Where is your cicisbeo today?”
Fanny didn’t bother to answer that. A cicisbeo waited on married women. Fanny was a widow, engaged in an affair. There was nothing wrong with her arrangement with Jeremy. Nothing at all when she betrayed no one. And what she did with Jeremy was no one’s business. “Your father promised the return of an important document of mine if I met with you today.”
Wilks smirked. “My father makes a lot of promises to me, too. Few of which I think he’ll honor unless I do as he wishes. He wished us to get to know each other better,” Wilks said with a smirk.
Fanny gritted her teeth. Clearly, Wilks planned to go along with that. He would also make her wait or beg for the document’s return. Jeremy insisted she should never beg. “I’m afraid your father will be doomed to disappointment, my lord. So will you.”
“I think not,” Wilks promised, turning toward her. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, my father’s tight fist has presented unacceptable difficulties for the running of Holly Field.”
“Your Devon estate? Yes, I’ve heard you’ve been living well beyond your means.”
Wilks glared at her. “Lies,” he hissed. “My father doles just enough blunt to keep me in line until the next quarter day. I haven’t had the funds to make improvements in years.”
Fanny doubted that. She’d seen Wilks gamble recklessly with her own eyes. “I still fail to see how this is any of my concern.”
“You could help me get out from under my father’s thumb,” Wilks murmured. “I’d make a good husband.”
Fanny laughed. “Is that right?”
He shuffled closer along the bench until his knee brushed hers.
Fanny barely stopped herself from launching herself out of her chair. She kept her hands folded in her lap though, ready to punch him in the nose if he had plans to force a match between them. “I’ve made no secret of my disinterest in remarriage.”
“You’ll change your tune when society turns its back on you.” He smirked. “You’ll find marriage to me the better alternative to the cold of a thousand cuts.”
Fanny had been on the outs with society before. Over Gillian, actually, but clearly Wilks thought her weak and malleable. “What could possibly cause such an event?”
“If a certain document with your signature upon it fell into the wrong hands, well…”
He left the threat unfinished.