Her heart was racing by the time she’d finished her sentence. Because this might have been one risk too many.
Mr. Marchand narrowed his eyes. “What if I told them thatyou, to my great shock, sorrow, and dismay, propositionedme?”
“Wha—you—I did no such thing!” She nearly squeaked it.
“But no one would blame me for making that inference, given that you had come straight to see me after sending me a letter including suggestive language to that effect. It’s the usual vague sort of thing ladies say when they’re negotiating that type of arrangement. I could even produce your letter. It would be my word against yours.”
That type of arrangement.As if it was a common occurrence.
Surely this wasn’t true?
The things she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know but actually rather did want to know, a little bit, were legion. She flailed inwardly.
She decided he must be bluffing.
“How on earth wouldIknow about suggestive language? Those can’t have been ladies who wrote to you.”
“So you admit you have no idea whatladiesusually do,” he drawled.
She sucked in a sharp breath and stared at him.
“You’re an awful person.” Her words emerged on a hush, oddly sounding more impressed than distressed. She supposed after a fashion she was. He was very good at whatever he was.
“Yes,” he agreed almost exasperatedly. As if he’d been trying to convey this all along.
A silence during which they remained fused in a mutual glare lasted a few moments.
“Well. It seems we are both victims of the world’s ghastliest coincidence, Mr. Marchand.”
“Indeed.”
“Surely, we can fix it so that we don’t need to speak to each other, and we certainly never need to be alone together. The sitting room might be purgatory a few nights of the week, but I’ve endured worse,” she told him loftily.
“As have I, Miss Woodville. Shall we shake on it?” The devil’s eyes were glinting.
“Good try, but absolutely not.” She swiftly clasped her hands behind her back.
“Very well, then. I look forward to ignoring you, Miss Woodville.”
As he passed, she heard a soft rustling sound.
If she was not mistaken, he was chuckling.
Chapter Five
Mr. Marchand did not appear at breakfast or dinner the following day. But any hopes Ginny might have had about him suffering an attack of conscience and slinking away from the Grand Palace on the Thames in the dead of night were dashed when Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand escorted him into the sitting room later that evening. He’d apparently merely been out all day advancing the cause of iniquity at Lucifer’s Fall.
She watched Mr. Marchand take in the pianoforte, the little tables and chairs scattered about and the gently worn settees, the rugs and curtains, the pillows embroidered with things like “Bless our home” with bemused wariness. He looked big, glossily gorgeous and incongruous in this pleasant room where nothing precisely matched, including the guests, but everything somehow looked as though it belonged together, for that very reason.
He was clutching a book bound in red. It looked to her quite a bit likeThe Ghost in the Attic, from which Mrs. Pariseau had read aloud in the sitting room a few days ago. Perhaps he’d borrowed it. He didn’t strike her as the sort of man whowould take a fright aboutanything, let alone a ghost. Perhaps he hoped to acquire a few new ideas about unnerving people from it.
Ginny had settled in at a table behind Mr. Delacorte and the chessboard, and she’d been contemplating joining Mrs. Pariseau and Dot on the opposite side of the room. Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt were lounging at little tables, too.
Mrs. Durand clearly intended to take Mr. Marchand around the room to make introductions. She began with Mrs. Pariseau, a dashing widow whom Ginny liked very much.
Startlingly, Mrs. Pariseau launched right into flirting unabashedly. But then that was apparently the sort of thing widows were allowed to do with no compunctions.
“Apleasureto meet you, Mr. Marchand,” Mrs. Pariseau told him. “You look like a man who hasquitea vivid story.”