The Honourable Fortune Hunter (Scandalous Miss Brightwells 5)

“Do I look sad?” she asked, knowing that if she were to feel anything, it should be outright guilt smiling at Harry given the way she had carried on with Theo the night before.

The fact she wasn’t flaming up and finding it hard to breathe must make her completely beyond redemption.

So, because she was a sinning minx, as Mrs Hodge put it, and she would be punished as she ought, there was no point in wondering what form that punishment would take so she must simply accept it with no complaints when the time came, and she’d simply carry on with Harry as she had before.

He was her destiny, it would appear.

So perhaps he was her punishment, also.

“You look positively forlorn. As if you were contemplating the most delicious slice of caraway seed cake only to have it whisked from your hands and gobbled down by someone else who had far less right to it.”

Lizzy raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I despise caraway seed cake. I think it’s the kind of cake I like least of all cakes.”

“And caraway seed cake is my favourite.” He, too, raised his eyes to the ceiling and said in a parody of her tragic look and tone, “How do we proceed from here, in the face of such diametrically opposed fancies?”

Lizzy put her head on one side. “Perhaps that’s for you to decide, Harry,” she said, almost ready to join him in the levity of the moment, but then feeling the tug at her heartstrings when she contemplated Theo and the warm and wonderful things he’d made her feel—only to leave her with such abrupt coldness. “But perhaps you’re right,” she added in a more considered and serious tone. “Perhaps there is no point in proceeding if we have such diametrically opposed fancies.”

Harry was clearly not ready to let it go at this. Feigning a look of the gravest dismay, he intoned, “You cannot say such a thing when my heart has been engaged by the loveliest, liveliest girl in the world.”

Lizzy sighed again, this time with a little less forbearance. “It’s easy to say such things, but you know you would feel differently if—”

She stopped. No, she couldn’t say it. Ladies did not say such things. Marriage was a business arrangement, but it was an unspoken agreement that affection was preeminent.

“If what?” He put a light hand on her upper arm and led her to the window away from prying eyes and listening ears. “Speak plainly, Lizzy, so I can debunk what I think you are going to tell me. That’s if you continue to be the plain-speaking miss I’ve come to know.”

“You would not speak any honeyed words to me, and you certainly would not be engaging my attentions in such a manner if I came with no dowry.” There. She’d said it. Spoken those words which were so crass and that no lady would have spoken.

He acknowledged this with a smile. “There has been no secret of the fact that your dowry will enable both of us to live in great comfort in the very commodious, but at the moment, somewhat sparsely furnished manor I inherited last year. Look around, Lizzy.” He gestured to the various personages about the room. “Lord and Lady Quamby—do you think theirs is an alliance based on love?”

Lizzy hadn’t thought about this before, but when she looked from the aged peer with his old-fashioned bagwig and his dandyish clothes, and the sticks he used to hobble about, to his countess, the dazzling beauty, Lady Quamby, she saw the truth of it.

Harry nodded. “But see how happy and lively they are? Both brought to the marriage title, beauty, money and, together, they have forged a union that has worked for the past five years.” He put his head close to her ear and added in a whisper, “While, out of the public arena, they live their own lives on their own terms. Now consider Mrs Hodge’s daughter, Susan, and her husband…theirs was an alliance in which love played little part.”

“Yes, and that is what makes me so afraid,” Lizzy whispered in a rush, pressing her palms together and feeling suddenly quite desperate. “I do so want to have a marriage based on love.”

“And so you will have one if you marry me. You are young and beautiful, and you need a husband to rescue you from Mrs Hodge. You have made that clear enough. I am no ageing roué. I am young and not without my charms. I can rescue you from Mrs Hodge, and in return for the financial rewards that I concede without embarrassment are an important part of the transaction between us, I can give you the loving attention you need to feel properly regarded.” He cleared his throat, then added softly, “I can make you feel loved.”

Lizzy looked at him dubiously, and a flash of concern flitted across his face as he asked, “Did you not enjoy our kiss beneath the mistletoe?”

She hesitated. Wha

t could she say? For she had quite enjoyed it, even if she had enjoyed Theo’s far more.

He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “If you are not sure, then perhaps you need a little more…exposure to the wonderful feelings that can be the result of mutual attraction. For let me be clear, Lizzy; I find you damnably attractive.”

“You do?” Pleasure skittered up her spine. She had felt damnably attractive last night, but when Theo had left her so abruptly, she’d felt the veriest of lowly creatures.

“I know…” He glanced over his shoulder as if afraid of being overheard, then dropped his voice. “Why don’t you meet me later this evening at the little folly overlooking the lake where I can kiss you properly. What we did beneath the mistletoe hardly constituted a kiss.” He pushed out his chest looking very confident she’d find this a splendid idea. “If you don’t want to, then there’s nothing more to be said. Any arrangement between us, unspoken in so many words though it still is, shall be forgotten.”

“This evening?” Lizzy contemplated the idea with caution. “I cannot possibly meet you tonight,” she said at last.

“Of course you can’t—though you could if you were madly in love with me already. I shall work hard to make that happen, Lizzy. All right. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning after breakfast. Ten o’clock. That is a safe and respectable time.” He squeezed her hand briefly. “Let me persuade you of how much I do love you, dearest Lizzy. How much I adore you, in fact.” He stroked her neck and put his face close to hers. “Do say you will meet me there, dear heart. I truly want to show you how wonderful marriage between the two of us could be.”

As Theodore wove his way through the well-dressed revellers who thronged the saloon in Quamby House, he reflected on the interesting sensation of being regarded as something of a pariah.

It had been nearly twelve months since the so-called crime which had resulted in him being blackballed by polite society. Of course, he had been warmly welcomed by institutions that considered such behaviour somehow deserving of accolades: the gaming hells and drinking dens. And, initially, these were the very places he’d tried to drown all memory of his three hellish evenings at the hands of Lord Leighton.

It was only later that he realised he had not been in his right mind as he’d caroused and gambled away the small estate his father had left him.