Stop it! she berated herself. Where you live is not important.
Blackthorne seemed to read her mind. “I’m sure Mr. Dover can’t afford to reside in Berkeley Square, next to Papa Castleigh. Hell, I can’t afford it.”
“Where we live isn’t important.”
“Right.”
They came to a fork in the road, and he guided the horse to the left. Maddie could see no road sign, and she hoped this was the right way to Gretna Green.
“Then let’s talk of what is important,” Blackthorne said. “Why are you eloping? What’s the hurry to marry?”
“That, sir, is none of your affair.”
“Are you—what is it you ladies say?—indisposed?”
“Sir!” This time she did smack him in the chest. She’d rather fall from the horse than allow that comment to go unpunished. “You are the most impudent person I have ever met.”
“Am I? Well, you’d best get used to it. Not everything is gilded and polished below the lofty heights of Berkeley Square. Someone might actually tell you something you don’t want to hear.”
“Oh, and I suppose you think you have sage advice for me.”
“It doesn’t take a sage to see that your marrying Dover is a mistake.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“And?”
“And, you don’t know the first thing about it.” “Don’t I?”
The tone in his voice cut off Maddie’s next retort. Why did he suddenly sound like he did understand? Impossible. He couldn’t see into her mind or her heart.
“You think the unmarried daughter of a wealthy earl and a bachelor marquess have nothing in common? How many proposals do you receive a month—no, a week? Just the average.”
“Three,” she said quietly.
“Three? That’s it? I would have thought at least five before you’d take such drastic measures.” He gestured to Mr. Dover.
Maddie huffed. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. How can you? Women don’t propose to men. They don’t corner them in libraries or garden benches and pledge their undying love.”
“No, but their mamas do. It got so bad that I couldn’t even take a piss—forgive my language— without some desperate mother sneaking up behind me to tell me how lovely her daughter was and how many sons she’d birth me.”
“No!” Maddie could not believe it. She’d heard stories, but never imagined anyone would be so shameless.
“Oh, yes. The widows are worse.”
Now she knew he was exaggerating his trials. “As though the attention of a widow is bothersome.” She had heard far too many stories about widows who had bevies of lovers. She’d even had such women pointed out to her.
Blackthorne shrugged, his movement causing her breasts to tingle. “Did your first few marriage proposals bother you?”
Maddie bit her tongue. He had a point. But he couldn’t really understand, not more than superficially, at any rate. Yes, the proposals had been bothersome and inopportune, but she was no dainty miss.
She had seen the seedier side of London. She’d comforted lonely orphans, who cried themselves to sleep. She’d sat by the bedside of a dying colonel, wounded in the peninsular wars. She’d fed the hungry, tried to clothe the homeless, cried for bears who bled for sport, and hares, dogs, and bulls who died for entertainment.
None of that proved she was not spoiled. She was, and she knew it. But the difference between her and the rest of the ton was that she appreciated her soft linen, her maidservant, and her full plate at dinner. In fact, it was because of the hardships she saw that she didn’t expect her small luxuries. Instead, she cherished them.
And she hated that Blackthorne thought her so weak as to assume that she could not tolerate the inconvenience of three marriage proposals a week. But it wasn’t the proposals that wore her down. It was the insincerity.
Above all, Maddie was an optimist. She had her dark moments and her doubts, like everyone else, but she always hoped for the best. Each time a new suitor approached her, she tried to keep an open mind. She hoped for the possibility that this man was the one she would fall in love with. This man was the one she would not be able to refuse.
