At her retreat, Mr. Anderson’s shoulders slumped. He let out a breath that was half sigh, half rueful laugh. “It seems I am capable of being shocked after all.”
Well, at least he could see the absurdity of the situation. She allowed him his levity. “Indeed.”
“I apologize, Miss Arden. I assure you I mean no insult.”
She waved this off but he continued to stare at her, frowning a bit.
“Truly,” he said, lowering his voice.
Oh, now he thought he had shattered her tender feelings. How very tedious.
“Not at all. I’ll have forgotten it by breakfast. It was no doubt wrong of me to ask. You are a solemn widower and I am a loose and terrifying woman. It would not do to corrupt you.”
It wouldn’t, clearly, and yet she could not help feeling annoyed by the vehemence of his rejection. It did not help that he was now gaping at her with perplexed dismay, as though he saw a magic square with mismatched sums rather than a woman. That stare made her feel like the caricatures of her in the papers—that rapacious beanpole giantess with the hooked nose and insatiable appetite for men. She fed the rumors, yes, but she did not appreciate seeing them reflected in the eyes of people who actually knew her.
She hoped he could not perceive her thoughts, but she gathered that he could, and that was why he lingered with that concerned expression on his face.
In any case, it was time for him to leave, so she could nurse her bruised vanity in the time-tested balm of excellent French burgundy.
“I should bid you good day, Mr. Anderson. I am most grateful for your architectural advice.”
Instead of leaving, he pulled up a chair from the table and sat down beside her.
“I fear my response just now lacked gallantry. If my circumstances were different, Miss Arden, I would be flattered. You only took me by surprise.” He bit his lip. “Again.”
Was that a trace of a mordant smile? At least he had a sense of humor.
She inhaled, gathering her face into the impenetrable smirk she had rehearsed so many times in the mirror. She had spent a decade fashioning herself into a woman of restrained emotion. That she was even slightly flustered by his response to her proposal was a sign that Cornwall was wearing on her nerves.
“Thank you, Mr. Anderson. No need for flattery. I asked, you answered, and now the sordid matter is behind us.”
But he continued staring at her with that pitying expression.
“You were candid with me, so allow me to be candid in return,” he said. “My responsibilities are such I cannot risk entanglements, however tempting.”
“Entanglements? I was not proposing marriage, Mr. Anderson. Merely inconsequential fucking.”
His brown eyes met hers. “Fucking is rarely inconsequential.”
How odd. She thought she’d shocked him with her frankness but now he spoke without embarrassment of matters most men avoided entirely.
“Yes. If you have read my book, you might have gathered I insist on a number of precautions against such consequences. After all, I can assure you from experience that they would be far more inconvenient for me.”
Not that it was any of Mr. Anderson’s concern. She had no idea why she was saying this. The burgundy, most likely. She reached for the gold cheroot case Henri had left behind and busied herself lighting the tobacco paper. She inhaled and let the smoke fan out around her, to shroud her in her own disreputability. She had given up tobacco in support of the cause of abolition, but tonight she craved the fortifying buzz of fire in her lungs.
And she wanted to blow smoke at Mr. Anderson, like a dragon.
She was not above a touch of theatre.
“It is a shame that anyone must suffer for such tempting pleasures as you offer,” Mr. Anderson said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “But men don’t suffer. Women do.”
He laughed bitterly. “Don’t we?”
She looked at him, waiting for him to say more, but he was silent. She smoked and listened to the waves crash against the cliffs below, waiting for him to leave.
He reached over to the table, where he had left his satchel. From it, he produced a thin bound volume. It was a copy of her first book: An Essay in Defense of Ruined Women. Well-worn, with frayed binding.
“If you mean to quote me on the risks of fornication, I will spare you the trouble. I wrote the book on it, you see.”
He gave her a sheepish grin that made him once again seem boyish. “It’s my sister’s. She wondered if I might charm you into signing it for her. Since it is clear to both of us my charms are rather lacking, perhaps I could prevail on your pity?”
Unfairly, he was even more handsome when he made jokes.
She took the book. “What would you have me write?”
He let out a sigh that made her shiver. “How about, To Marianne Anderson, whose brother wishes he could be a different sort of man.”
That coaxed a smile from her.
Finally.
He could see from her tart, bruised manner that he had injured Miss Arden’s pride by rejecting her offer. He was not sure why it felt so vitally important to convey to this woman he barely knew that he wanted her, even if he couldn’t have her.
Perhaps because it had been so long since he’d been cognizant of wanting anything outside of architectural commissions. He was grateful to remember that this part of him still lived, even if he could not let it be a part that he indulged.
It was his mind that shied from her offer, not his body. His body was increasingly regretful.
“Your sister truly requested my signature?” Miss Arden asked.
He smiled. “She did. She’s an admirer of your work. As was my wife.”
Miss Arden raised a brow. “You allowed her to read it?”
He snorted at the thought of “allowing” Catriona to do anything. “She read what she liked.”
She smiled. “So you’re the clever sort.”
He laughed, pleased at this assessment from the infamous philosopher.
Or perhaps just pleased at this chance to have a conversation with a woman other than his sister. Being here reminded him of the long discussions he used to have with Catriona, talks that veered to such strange and honest places they often shocked each other and themselves with the words they had uttered in the dark. He rarely spoke that way now to anyone.
He missed it.
He was so lonely.
And he hadn’t even been aware of it.
Miss Arden took the book from him and scrawled a few words on the title page.
To Miss Anderson, in solidarity with womankind. Best wishes, Seraphina Arden
She handed it back to him and reabsorbed herself in her cheroot. Curled up in her shawl on the settee, her legs tucked beneath her gown, exhaling smoke into the wind, she was not the temptress he had met the day before, nor even the provocateur who had propositioned him a quarter of an hour ago. She looked tired, perhaps adrift in thought.
He could so easily lean over now, kiss that weary expression from her mouth.
He wanted to.
But there was little to be gained by indulging such desires. That, perhaps, was the truth behind Miss Arden’s sadness. Where did the thrills she suggested ever lead but a kind of devastation, even if it was just a quiet, private one?
Better to abstain.
A lesson he relearned every morning when he woke up in bed, alone.
Adam took the book and rose. “Well, Miss Arden, I must be going.”