Chapter Nine
Jackson looked longand hard at the damned confusing woman walking beside him. He needed her to agree! This morning he had everything laid out clearly in his head. So much so, he’d already begun the groundwork for her to be the Season’s sensation. He’d been sure that with little pressure, a few charming smiles, she would blithely follow his suggestions, and everything would come out just as it ought.
Except the woman had been remarkably immune to his charms. Even when she’d been flustered by his bare chest, she’d held herself in check and accessed her brain instead of her desires. And now, damn it, he could not distract her with flattery or maneuver her into the place he wanted. Worse, she’d called him out on his tactics.
“Will you stop trying to manage me and find someone else?” she huffed.
“You are the best choice,” he said firmly.
“The best choice is someone who agrees.”
He couldn’t argue with her there. He blew out his breath and steeled himself to use his last chance persuasive technique: brutal honesty. “I should like to explain my choice to you,” he said calmly. “I should like to explain in very logical terms why you are the best and only person who can do what we require this Season. But I have no wish to hurt you, and the truth can be very painful sometimes.”
She lifted her chin. “Have I ever given you reason to think I was overly emotional? That I wanted anything but the absolute truth?”
“No,” he said. “But in this, most people think they want to hear it—”
“Enough,” she said. “Either spit it out or we shall end this mad scheme once and for all.” Her tone was as tight as her expression. She did not like being thwarted in her plans, but in this she would have to give way.
“Very well.” He paused a moment not to give her time to steel herself, but for him to find the right phrasing. It eluded him, so he began in a backwards way hoping to figure out the right approach as he spoke.
“Your brother came to me this afternoon.”
She jolted. “Elliott? Why?”
“He warned me off from you. It was the usual nonsense. I am a fortune hunter, he would cut you if we married, blah blah.”
She gaped at him. “But you aren’t trying to marry me! And even if you were, he should not have—”
“It doesn’t bother me. I have had many such talks over the years.” He touched her hand. They both wore gloves and yet she flinched back from him. “Elliott said you were delightfully intelligent and had a wicked sense of humor.”
She steadied, but her eyes were still wary. “He is my brother. His love clouds his judgment.”
“I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. Why do you disagree?”
Her lips curved into a small smile that mocked herself. “My intelligence is the one thing I am known for,” she said. Then at his continued stare, she huffed, “It’s not an asset in a woman.”
“I find intelligence the minimum of requirements in any of my associates, especially the women.” He shifted to guide her away from the park. He had a destination in mind that was not filled with every aristocrat who went strolling during the fashionable hour.
“You are unusual then,” she drawled. “As is my sense of humor. I assure you, I am the only one who laughs when I make a joke.”
He smiled. “I cannot judge that as I have never heard you make a joke. I suspect you have learned to keep your amusements to yourself.”
She frowned at him. “You are not persuading me to your cause. Nor are you insulting me. What is this honesty you fear to reveal?”
Jackson held her gaze to impress his next words on her. “Your brother called you an odd duck as if that were a bad thing.” He shook his head. “I am sorry if this hurts you. I know you must love him, but truly, that was the stupidest thing I have heard in a very long time.”
She frowned at him. “But I am an odd duck. And I assure you, I have been called worse.”
“Why does everyone think different is bad? Good God, odd is the best thing in the world! It means you are unique, interesting, and incredibly valuable.” He leaned forward. “Indeed, it will make you an Original.”
She stared at him a moment, and then a strange sort of snort seemed to choke her. He thought at first she was choking, but soon realized she was trying to stifle her mirth. It wasn’t a delicate sound. With the way she tried to swallow it down, the humor came out more as a snort than a giggle, and it was soon replaced with a coughing bray.
He smiled, though his tone when he spoke was excruciatingly dry. “The fact that you are laughing right now tells me you do have a sense of humor. And a wicked one at that, because you are laughing at me when I am being very serious.”
“You are not!” she said, her eyes crinkling with her smile. “You suggest that you will make me an Original, theton’shighest appellation to any woman. The one name that is guaranteed to make the woman a sensation. You—”
“Yes!” he cried. “What is being an Original but being different? Lady Gwen, you already are that in spades! The reason you weren’t a sensation before is because everyone else was too blind to see it. Even you! But that is where I come in. I shall show everyone what they were too stupid to notice.”