Mr. Ogden left again, gingerly balancing the freshly signed invoice, blowing sand from it.
Mr. Marchand regarded her evenly.
She was proud that she didn’t even flinch, although that “b” word entered her like a dart. She thought yearningly of the Epithet Jar in the sitting room at the Grand Palace on the Thames, presiding over civility.
“How efficient of you to delegate your epithets to Mr. Ogden.”
“Are you complimenting my business acumen, Miss Woodville?” he said softly.
“I suppose I am,” she said carefully. “Imagine what a triumph you’d be if you’d decided to farm sheep instead. I suppose your experience with hells necessarily consigned you to...”
She gestured broadly to the establishment at large and almost poked herself with her hidden knitting needle.
“Indeed,” he said silkily. “We all play the hands we’re dealt, Miss Woodville. Just as women are so often consigned to using tears, swoons, or seduction to get what they want, because those are so often the only resources at their disposal. Women have, in fact, done everything from threatening me with bodily harm to offering the pleasure of their bodies to me in exchange for forgiving a debt or for persuading theirhusbands to stop gambling. No one, least of all me, faults any woman who attempts it.”
Ginny had the strangest sensation that she was slowly being backed into a corner.
That he’d in fact been herding her neatly into a particular position during this entire conversation.
“I am generally disinclined to accept such proposals. However, given that your letter mentions your desire for the two of us to reach a mutually satisfactory solution to resolve your brother’s debt, I have decided to offer that last option to you. Despite your contempt for the way I conduct my life.”
Ginny’s breath seized in her lungs. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll call off your brother’s debt to the house if you spend a night in my bed.”
“In your...”
She stopped just in time. Because she had the horrible suspicion that if she asked what that would entail, he would tell her in no uncertain terms.
The silence was so total it was as though sound had never existed. The air seemed to cease circulating. Surprise obliterated her ability to form thoughts.
His polite expression was more surreal than any dream.
He simply waited.
Because he knew she was imagining it, and he wanted to witness her doing that.
And shewasimagining it. How could she not?
It was her first realization that senses and sense were not always in accord. Because while her mind reeled in shock, her skin hummed and heated, as if coming alive in anticipationof being covered by him. A strange thrill mingled with queasy fear and unseemly yearning pooled low in her belly.
She could not look away from him.
And that bastard knew.
Just as she knew what she ought to say right now.
Perhaps driving her away had been the point of his proposition. But it was already several seconds past the time she ought to have shrieked in outrage and stormed out in a huff.
The longer she waited the more she incriminated herself.
But she would never again have a chance to ask the question that burned.
“Why me?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Because...” He leaned back in his chair and studied her again, as if he wanted to get his answer precisely right. “You have the look of a woman who has long yearned for someone to tell her what to do.”
Her vision flickered in shock.