She should say no. There was no other answer, really, but she found herself saying, “Yes. All right.” She’d ever been a fool for artists.
His smile indicated a smugness he likely often felt. “Good. Truthfully, I’d not expected you to capitulate so easily.”
“I should not have, but …”
“Yes?”
She shrugged. “I do not have many to tell my secrets to. It might be nice to reveal one or two.”
“Precisely. Now here’s how it shall go. I’ll tell you about my clothing choices if you tell me about”—he dropped his eyes to where her backside met the bed—“that sketchbook.”
Her sketchbook? She reached beneath her and pulled it into the open. “No.”
“Ah, that important of a secret, then.”
“No.”
“Then why not share it with me, if it’s so inconsequential?”
Drat. She’d have to tell him something about it. She could show him her sketches, avoid the more inflammatory pages. “Fine. I’ll show you the notebook.”
“But first,” he said, “let me tell you what prize we play for.”
Her chest filled with lead. She didn’t want to know. “Pocket change? Bragging rights? A new set of sketching pencils?”
“Each other.”
She closed her eyes, tried to block out his words. She’d been enjoying herself with him! Why did he have to ruin it with talk of—
“Marriage.”
She groaned.
He turned more toward her and took her hands in his. “Tut-tut, Mags. I’ve sensed your reluctance to marriage, but this is one of those areas where I’m a serious man.”
She peered up at him and found it to be true. Nothing could be more deadly serious than his face at that moment.
His sensual mouth, usually light with mirth stretched into a taut line. His eyes, usually sparkling with laughter, shone hard in the candlelight. “You did not mean to compromise me or yourself, but there’s no going back from what happened, and I’m not a man to run from responsibility, no matter what it may seem like. I’ve seen the way they look at you, your parents’ guests. I’ve heard their whispers and observed their bumbling attempts to court you now that they think they can.” His grip tightened. “What do you want from life, Maggie?”
She pulled her hands from his grip. “That’s not the question you want me to answer. My sketchbook, remember.”
He continued his hard stare, his jaw tight, waiting.
She sighed. “Stability.” Might as well tell the truth.
He frowned. “Stability.”
“That would be a good start.”
“A start?”
“I’ve never realized I had an echo in my room.”
“I can give you stability. My grandfather is an earl and my grandmother is well respected. My father is one of the richest men in England. Anyone you marry here, the novelist for example, will not have nearly as much to offer.”
So said the artist. She held no illusions as to why he mentioned his family could offer stability and not himself. She stuffed her notebook into the top of her banyan and rolled off the edge of the bed then paced to the window. But if not Tobias, then who? She was not innocent enough to have missed the change in how others treated her in the last few days. They cut glances her way, whispered around her, avoided her. Had she truly ruined her chances at marriage? She’d promised Raph she’d marry, but would anyone marry her? And the stability offered by a man’s family was better than the none offered by her own. Perhaps she should take his suit seriously as another means of saving her family and herself.
“You’re agitated.”
