This made her smile. She thought a little more.He looked forward to what she would come out with. “Gardens?”
“Yes. Trees, flowers, and gardens, both the very tidy kind, because it appeals to the soldier in me who likes to see things in formation, and the wild kind, because I rather admire the tenacity of anything that tries to be fully itself.”
She looked rapt. “The ocean?”
“Yes, very much,” he said quietly.
He suspected she was offering a list of thingssheloved.
“Ocean voyages?” She was tentative.
“Yes,” he said gently, after a moment. Knowing she would be embarking on her first in a few days.
“And you like reading...”
“I do.”
Suddenly her eyes were dancing. “If you were a fountain, what sort of fountain would you be?”
He gave a little shout of laughter. Then he sighed. “Mrs. Pariseau is invigorating.”
“I thought so. And I rather like her prickly friend, too. Mrs. Cuthbert. She’s like a dash of pepper in the stew. Or that one ingredient you’re not certain you like, but which makes things interesting.”
“Mrs. Cuthbert is likely just a bit too stimulated. Frightened creatures use whatever defenses they have at their disposal, and hers is disapproval. Other people throw gloves and slippers.”
Her eyes flared in surprise, and a flush moved into her cheeks. But she didn’t relinquish his gaze; she in fact inspected his face rather fiercely. Whatever she saw there made her eyes shine.
“And I would be an indestructible fountain, and I would never run dry, so that any thirsty creature who wants a drink can come and have one. How it looks matters not a bit, as long as those things are true. Perhaps it’s a great block.”
Her eyes were shining with delight now. “I’m certain people would come from miles around for the honor of drinking from the great block.”
He laughed.
“Speaking of frightened creatures, I wonder how Lord Thackeray is faring in Newgate,” she ventured.
Bloody hell.
Perhaps she liked her chances of persuading him while she was wearing that dress, and after she had just charmed him. He had to admire the tactic.
“Oh, he might be sharpening a stool leg into a shiv as we speak. Or bartering his shoes for food.”
Charming men who were a bit feckless had a place in the world. But Thackeray had endangered her and Magnus remained quietly, implacably furious about it. Thackeray’s crime—hismistake, as it were—was ridiculous. A grown man had no business being such a fool.
“There was a time when you told me you were disinclined to judge people,” she ventured.
“It isn’t judgment to allow people to experience the consequences of their actions,” he explained, tersely.
And that’s when he saw her jaw set.
“Of course not,” she said, with great irony.“And I suppose people also tell you what punishment they deserve with their actions.”
And just like that, tension simmered. Because now they were talking about her, and him, and their wedding night.
“In my experience, unfailingly,” he said simply, which he knew would madden her.
He didn’t know why he liked the fact that she had a temper. It wasn’t the spoiled or capricious sort; it arose from a defense of her rights and convictions, and he wholly respected it, even when he disagreed with her.
A silence fell for a bar’s worth of the music.