The twin line between his brows deepened. “You don’t find me agreeable?”
“Agreeable? How ever did you arrive at that deduction? It’s not like you and I have conversed before now. It’s not like you havecourtedme.” Or fought even a little for the privilege of being at my side.
His gaze bore into hers, his lips silent.
Nothing to say? “Had I not overheard my parents speaking of pawning me off, I’d probably only have found out on the wedding day.” Her gaze dipped to that glaring document before they narrowed on him. “Why would you rush to marry me anyway?”
This time he didn’t hesitate. “Why would I not? You are beautiful, intelligent, and unattached.”
Unattached?
As in easy prey?
Harriet pursed her lips. At any moment, horns might sprout through his toffee-colored hair and his jaw could drop, revealing sharp, frightening canines while fire shot from his throat, scorching her eyebrows, andthatwould be more believable than the answer that rolled off his tongue. “Well, I have no intention of weddingyou.”Not without you convincing me you are able to rise to the promise I made.
The corners of his lips drew upward—the first sign of some form of emotion. “And the gossips believe you are a timid mouse.”
“I am not a mouse.” She let her eyes shoot flames at him. “Nor am I timid.”
“You most assuredly are not.”
Harriet curled her lip, done with the conversation. She had an impending mission to test this man. And possibly a marriage to sabotage if he failed the test. “If you will excuse me,my lord.”
He stepped in front of her when she would have passed him. “A word, my lady.”
“The time forwordswould have been before you and my father decided to parley my future without my concurrence.”
“I must ask again,” he paused for breath, “mylady.” A short silence. “In what way do you not find me agreeable?”
Harriet had no intention of satisfying him by answering the question and couldn’t understand his hesitating response. Couldhe truly not see why she should object to this arrangement? “In what way do you think that you are?”
He frowned. “I am a marquess.”
Harriet’s jaw threatened to drop open for the second time that day, but she recovered quickly with the lift of her chin. “So you are titled. Congratulations.”
“You...” The corner of his eye twitched. “You will want for nothing as my wife. I’ll treat you well.”
“My father said as much.” Harriet refused to temper the skepticism in her voice. “So many a man has said to many a woman.”
His gaze never wavered. “You believe I am not a man of my word?”
“I believe you keep the company of Cromby and his cronies.”
“Cromby keeps my company, not the other way around.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black.”
The footman gave a low cough.
Harriet ignored him.
“You will judge me,” Leeds asked slowly, “by such a simple thing?”
“Is there anything simple about your companions? The company you keep? Or that keeps you?” Her arms crossed over her breast, book tucked in between. “I overheard Cromby refer to Lady Penelope North as Pudgy Penelope, and that is theleastof his transgressions.”
Leeds grimaced.
Good. At least the man had some sense of good and evil.
