‘Gosh. That is very impressive.’
‘There you go again. Imputing me with virtues I do not have. I could make neither head nor tail of it!’
‘I didn’t mean...’ that she assumed he’d managed to translate it. She was just impressed that he’d spent the better part of two weeks wrestling with some Greek epigram in order to win her father’s permission to court her.
‘And then,’ he said as he got to the end of the room and was turning to pace back, ‘at the end of the first week, he informed me that he’d been lenient setting me a riddle to solve written in Greek, since he might well have done so in Aramaic. Eventually, well, you know me better than anyone has ever done. You must already have guessed that I gave up. And gave up in the most dramatic style,’ he said in self-disgust. ‘I tore the cursed thing to pieces and stormed out into the orchard.’
‘And then?’
‘He followed me outside, sat me down and told me that although I would not be his choice of husband for you, that at least I appeared to be very much in earnest about you. And that if you wanted to marry me, he would not forbid the match, because there was no accounting for women’s tastes, after all.’
She could just imagine the dry way he’d said it. He always did think women a very great puzzle.
‘That was when I confided that I wasn’t at all sure you did want to marry me, which was why I’d gone down to see him. I had hoped if I could win him over, that would count in my favour, seeing how very highly you regard his opinion.’
‘Oh. Did...did that win him round?’
‘Not really. He just said he was glad to hear you had not entirely lost your head, just because you’d gone to London. Nor did he wish me luck with you when I left. He just said I must not be as big an idiot as I looked, since I had fallen for a girl with as much sense as you, and that at least if you married me I was bound to improve.’
‘Oh...dear.’ Henrietta put her hand over her mouth. What a very unpleasant time Lord Deben had been having.
‘But I won’t,’ he said grimly. ‘Tonight’s performance has proved beyond all shadow of doubt that I am beyond redemption. I came to town determined to court you in form, and what did I do instead? The very first chance I got, I made it impossible for you to do anything but marry me.’
She shucked his jacket aside, uncurled her legs and crossed the room.
When she reached him, he caught her hands. ‘I have done only one thing tonight of which I’m not ashamed. And that was to show that oaf that you have brought a peer of the realm to his knees. At least if you had chosen him, that might have made him treat you with just a little more respect. He was the one, wasn’t he? The one over whom you were weeping, the night we met?’
‘Yes. But I got over him remarkably swiftly. Because,’ she admitted shyly, ‘I met someone who cast him completely in the shade.’
She squeezed his hands, encouraging him to understand she meant him. He gripped them hard.
‘I taught you to want me, physically,’ he said. ‘I know that, but...’
‘It has always been more than that. But I dared not let anyone know how I felt about you. There was already so much gossip flying about. I did not want to appear in it all as a lovesick fool.’
He searched her face. ‘I always thought I could tell exactly what you were thinking.’
She shook her head.
‘You were so often cross with me,’ he persisted.
‘I have never been so angry with anyone in my life as I have been with you. You made me want things I thought were impossible. I...’ She flung up her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I didn’t want to love you, because I thought you could never love me back. But I couldn’t stop loving you, no matter how hard I tried. Can’t you see what a deleterious effect that might have had on my temper?’
The breath left his lungs in a great whoosh.
‘You never needed to attempt to seduce me,’ she said, ‘or back me into a corner where marrying you seemed like the only way out. All you ever had to do was ask.’
‘I didn’t dare,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you would believe I was in earnest.’