Somehow, the mere reference to his title didn’t hurt quite as much as it once had. He couldn’t say that he would ever wear it comfortably. But perhaps he might…grow accustomed to it, eventually. “I’ve been out of society too long to have paid much attention to such things,” he said. “When I was living abroad, it was a rare day that I even bothered with a waistcoat.” Most of the time there had been no one to see him anyway. And he had quite liked it that way, since the people who did see him, however irregularly, had invariably made it clear that they wished they had not.
A handful of cravats tumbled onto the floor, and another pair of trousers with them. “Well, you must wear them now,” she said. “But not, I think, this one.” She let another waistcoat fall from the pinch of her fingers with a little moue of distaste. “There,” she said, nudging the small pile away from her. “I think that’s the last of it.”
“Would you like to examine my shoes as well?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said. “I’ve found no fault with them yet. Although—” She tapped her finger to her chin. “Your eyepatch,” she said. “I think plain black does not quite suit.”
He touched his fingers to it, startled. “Why not?”
“Because everything you own should be elegant,” she said. “And your eyepatch—it is an accessory, you know. Just because it serves a purpose does not mean it cannot also be pretty.”
“I have never wished to draw attention to it,” he said, and winced at the slight inflection of embarrassment in his voice. It drew attention anyway, he knew. Left people wondering how much worse whatever was hidden behind it might be.
“It’s not about attracting attention,” she said. “It’s about confidence.”
“Confidence?”
“Yes, of course. A pretty face might hold the interest for a moment or two—just long enough, really, for a man to open his mouth and ruin any temporary good will he might have gained upon a shallow first impression.”
Anthony smothered a snort in his palm.
“But you could be Adonis made flesh, and still it would avail you nothing if you had not a pleasing personality, an amiable character. Haven’t you ever noticed that people become ever so much more attractive when we admire them? Even a homely face becomes beloved when the one who wears it is dear to us.”
“Are you saying,” he asked, “that you could find me attractive despite my scars?”
“Yes,” she said baldly, with a little gesticulation of her hands that was meant to convey her exasperation with the question. As though the answer ought to have been obvious. “Yes, I do. Because youareattractive.” And she fisted her hands on her hips, as if to suggest some manner of annoyance over his willful ignorance.
For a moment, he could only find himself stunned into silence. That the question he had expected her to neatly sidestep had instead resulted in an answer he had not expected. That it hadn’t even sounded like a polite lie.
He supposed she had made some salient points; despite her flagrant beauty, he would not have found her half so lovely had she been cold, or arrogant, or condescending. Those things he had always considered to be hisflaws…they weren’tflawsto her. And in retrospect, he had spent considerably less time just lately considering his own appearance and anyone else’sopinion of it. Gentlemen were wont, after all, to weave intricate knots of their cravats—why should an eyepatch be any different?
“I suppose I might…consider it,” he said.
“Embroidery,” she said as she stepped closer. “Or perhaps a few pearl beads—”
He huffed out a laugh. “I draw the line at pearls. But the embroidery…” He shrugged and repeated, “I’ll consider it.”
“Do. I think you would look quite dashing,” she said as she settled not into the chair across from his own, but upon his knee. “Rakish, even, if it suits you.”
Anthony could only marvel at the assertion. Had anyoneeverdescribed him as dashing? “I don’t know that I’d care to be called a rake,” he said as she walked her fingertips up his chest toward the knot of his cravat.
“Rakish,” she corrected mildly. “It is to your benefit to have the air of one, since many men seek to portray themselves thus and just as many women fancy that they’d like to reform one. And how lucky for your eventual bride that she won’t find it difficult at all.”
Right. His eventual bride. “You still haven’t told me what you will ask for your fee,” he said. And God knew he owed her more already than he could ever hope to repay.
“I still have yet to decide,” she said. “Perhaps I will ask for an invitation to your wedding.”
It was offered in the teasing inflection of a jest, but it was the first allusion either of them had made to a potential wedding—and by proxy, to Lady Cecily—in some time. The delicate broaching of a subject they had tacitly decided to avoid. And he found himself asking, with some curiosity, “Would you truly attend?”
For a moment some odd expression chased across her face, something he couldn’t quite place. “No,” she said at last, though it had been tendered with a forced smile as she rose once more to her feet. “I won’t ask, and you must not invite me. It wouldn’t be wise.”
“I don’t care if it is wise. I would rather have you at my wedding.” And in his life thereafter. He didn’t want their friendship to come to so abrupt an end that she would not even attend his wedding. Perhaps it was why he could not make himself settle upon Lady Cecily, despite her apparent suitability—because once he did, Charity would consider her job accomplished.It would all be over.
He would lose her.
“And I would rather not be. Weddings always make me a bit sad,” she said on a sigh. “I would hate to bear witness to yet another perfectly good bachelor sacrificing himself upon the altar of marriage. There’s fewer and fewer of us every day.”
“You’re not a bachelor,” he said. “You’re—”
