She shook her head. “Not men in general. I am looking for one man.” Then she looked at him, and for a moment he saw the little girl he remembered from a decade ago. One who loved spending time with her father and hated that he was the not-as-bright interloper student her father adored. One who wore her heart on her sleeve and apparently wished for something all little girls dream of. And then, lest he miss it, she said the words out loud. “I want to fall in love with a man and him with me. I want children and a happy home. I want to live happily ever after.”
“Well, you definitely won’t get that with Ronnie.”
She nodded morosely as her gaze went back out the window. Not just out the window, he realized, but in the direction of London. “Your father won’t let you go to London? To have a Season?”
She lifted her chin, slid pretend glasses down her nose, and looked at him in exactly the manner that her father would take. “As a wealthy cit on display? You would hate it, my dear. All of them are gamblers and whoremongers. Best to marry Ronnie. At least poetry will not burn through your dowry.”
His eyebrows rose. “Your father does not have a very flattering opinion of my set.”
“Don’t most gentlemen of your set spend their time gambling and womanizing? Discussing the cut of their clothing and planning elaborate amusements out of boredom?”
A true hit. “Not all gentlemen do such. Some run the country or the Exchange. Some are diplomats and scholars.”
“And so I told him, but…” She shrugged. “He wants me to marry Ronnie. It will keep the money in the family.”
“But you want to have money so you can go on your own?”
“I want my own money to go anywhere, Mr. Anaedsley. Anywhere at all that has men who might love me.”
“London has all the best men,” he said, seeing how he could get her to fall exactly into his plans.
She dropped her head back against her chair. “But I have no sponsor. Even if I had the money of my own, I have noentreinto society.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “You know me.”
“You are hardly an appropriate chaperone.”
“Quite true, but I have friends who would help if I asked.” He flashed her his most charming smile. “I can be rather persuasive when I want.”
She turned to frown at him, but hope sparked in her eyes. “You would do that for me? You would be persuasive on my behalf?”
“Of course I would,” he said, excitement bright in his heart.
“But why?”
He grinned. If he was to do this thing, then he should by all rights do it completely. And so he dropped to one knee before her, imitating the exact pose her cousin had been in not twelve hours before.
“I would do it,” he said, “if you would become my affianced bride.”
Three
Rakes are tricky beasts who always have a plan.
Mellie stared at the man at her feet, and her mind refused to comprehend. Mr. Anaedsley, the future Duke of Timby, was on his knees before her with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. It made no sense. What he’d said… He couldn’t be serious, and yet some part of her understood exactly what was happening and was beyond thrilled. Her heart beat in her throat, and the joy that tingled in her stomach was going to make her ill.
Lord Charming was asking her to be his bride.
“But…but…” she babbled.
“Yes?” he prompted, his grin widening. He had the attitude of a man making a joke, but this was no joke. Not to her.
“But you don’t like me!”
“I know,” he said. His eyes were definitely dancing now. “And you don’t like me.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She thought him mischievous and unfocused and…well, and an aristocrat. Which meant he was generally a useless person living a life of selfish pleasure. He didn’t study. He didn’t lead. He simply gadded about doing whatever struck his fancy.
Useless. He was useless, and yet for the first time in her life, she thought that useless might not be so bad. Not when it came with a smile and a twinkle. Not when he could make her laugh and offered to save her from her cousin. Given that, useless might look like chivalry.