“James, I do walk home by myself every day.”
“Nonetheless, I must keep my promises.”
“I’m happy to release you from this one. After all, you could hardly have expected to be knocked to the ground.”
“Truly, it’s not that painful. I just cannot walk with my usual speed.”
She looked uncertain.
“Besides,” he added, thinking that he needed to reinforce his position, “we still have much to discuss concerning Lady Danbury’s garden party on Saturday.”
“Very well,” she said reluctantly. “But you must promise to tell me if the pain becomes overwhelming.”
A promise easily kept, since he wasn’t in any pain at all. Well, not of the sort to which she referred.
They’d taken only a few steps before Elizabeth turned to him and asked, “Are you all right?”
“Perfectly,” he assured her. “But now that you have mastered the art of self-defense, I do think we should move on to other aspects of your education.”
She blushed. “You mean…”
“Precisely.”
“Don’t you think it would be wise to begin with flirting?”
“Elizabeth, I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that score.”
“But I haven’t the slightest clue how to go about it!”
“I can only say that you are a natural.”
“No!” she said forcefully. “I’m not. I haven’t the faintest idea what to say to men.”
“You seemed to know what to say to me. That is,” he amended, “when you weren’t trying to adhere to Mrs. Seeton’s edicts.”
“You don’t count.”
He coughed. “And why not?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a little shake of her head, “you just don’t. You’re different.”
He coughed again. “Not so very different from the other members of my gender.”
“If you must know, you’re much easier to talk to.”
James considered that. Prior to meeting Elizabeth, he’d prided himself on being able to render sniveling debutantes and their grasping mamas utterly speechless with one well-placed stare. It had always been a most effective tool—one of the only truly useful things he had ever learned from his father.
Out of curiosity, he fixed his most supercilious, I-am-the-Marquis-of-Riverdale stare on her—the one that routinely sent grown men scurrying into corners—and said, “What if I looked upon you like this?”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, stop! Stop! You look ridiculous.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stop, James. Oh, you must. You look like a little boy pretending to be a duke. I know, because my younger brother tries the same stunt on me all the time.”
Pride stung, he said, “And how old is your brother?”
“He’s eight, but—” Whatever she had meant to say was lost in her laughter.