“You may consider that my gift to you, Lord Bolt.”
He smiled faintly.
A tiny awkward silence fell.
He cleared his throat.
“May I ask, is it because... are your... er, affections now otherwise engaged?” he said stiffly, feeling absurd. And oddly raw. In other words, like any other poor sap who had ever needed to question his powers of attraction.
He regretted saying it the moment it emerged from his mouth.
She stared at him.
“No,” she said, sounding almost mystified. And a little exasperated again. As if he’d failed to grasp a critical concept.
He was perilously close to blushing.
He supposed “no” was better than “yes.”
Or was it?
It didn’t mean it was true. He thought about that American Cassidy, all rugged politeness and teeth.
“So is it just the generalnotionof...” oh, devil take it “...vigorous sex...”
“Not even your considerable charms are inducement enough to threaten my hard-won contentment.”
He suspected the compliment was meant to distract him. The way one might throw a beef bone to an annoying dog. But he was arrested instead by that word—“hard-won.” Because this was the closest thing he’d ever heard to her uttering a complaint. And yet it was less a complaint than a sudden window into her.
“Well, clearly my charms are not nearly as formidable as I thought they were,” he said, finally. “I shall proceed to get drunk and brood.”
“A time-honored way to ease shattering disappointment, I’m given to understand.”
That she should go on being beautiful, and go on saying things like that, things that delighted him even as she thoroughly rejected him, seemed too cruel.
But then it got worse.
“I should like it if we could be friends, Lord Bolt.”
She sounded appallingly sincere.
A silence spread like a stain.
“Friends?” he managed finally, on something like a croak, as though she’d extended a silver platter upon which rested his own testicles.
“Oh, come now,” she said mildly. “No need to be dramatic. It strikes me that you could use a friend or two. Even if it’s a woman.” This last word was rich with irony.
“I could use the sort of friend who would rush to my defense with a pistol, Mrs. Breedlove. The sort who will stand at my elbow in gaming hells and at the racetrack and goad me on. Talk me out of duels, should the impulse take me. That sort of friend.”
“I should imagine I’d make an excellent second, should a duel be imminent.”
Somehow hecouldeasily imagine her coolly inspecting and loading a pistol and handing it to him.
“Canyou shoot a pistol?”
“I can, as it so happens. Captain Hardy insisted we learn.”
This somehow didn’t surprise him, either.