His eyes narrowed. “Then you’d better get used to it.”
She bent toward a rosebush and inhaled the fragrance of a blowsy yellow bloom.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said.
Izzy stiffened, and slowly turned to face him.
“I am prepared to settle a handsome sum on you.”
She arched an eyebrow and waited, her expression as bland as she could make it. Her pulse was racing. Her fingers had curled into fists. Not this, surely?
“Enough for you to purchase a home of your own, along with an annual allowance.” He named a sum that would indeed support her in comfort, if not in luxury. “The allowance would, of course, cease if you married. The house would remain yours.”
“I see. And what would you expect of me in exchange for such largesse?” She tried to keep the acid from her voice. It was not the first time a man had made her a dishonorable proposition, but she hadn’t expected it from Clarissa’s guardian. And certainly not within the first hour of meeting him.
“Leave. Disappear. Remove yourself entirely from Miss Studley’s company. Have no further communication with her.”
She narrowed her eyes. “None at all?”
He gave a curt nod. “Your association with Miss Studley must cease. Completely.”
“And for abjuring the company of my sister you will give me a house and a handsome allowance? I don’t have to do anything else?”
“No. As long as you stay away from her, you can do as you like.”
She hadn’t expected that. She’d been braced for quite another sort of offer. Which, to do him credit, he had not made. Still... “Why would you do such a thing?”
He said stiffly, “It is only what your father should have done in the first place.”
Izzy glanced away, struggling with her emotions. Her fathershouldhave provided for her. He especially should have provided for her mother. After everything that Mama had done—and put up with—so that she and Izzy could survive...
An offer like this would have made all the difference in the world to their lives. Would still make a difference to hers.
A home of her own. Security. It had been a dream of hers for so long.
But to demand that she abandon her sister...
Izzy found she was shaking with anger.
She raised her chin and looked him square in the eye. “In a just world, my father would have made provision for my mother and me long ago. But to offer belated justice now, and with such a condition attached...” Her lip curled. “Keep your grubby little bribe, Lord Salcott. I’ll keep my sister.” She turned on her heel and marched down a random path.
She would show him. Abandon Clarissa? Better menthan he had tried to separate them. Well, no, not better men. Only Papa, really, and nobody could ever call Papa “better.”
She marched on, brooding over Lord Salcott’s offer, oblivious of the beauty of the garden, the fresh green foliage, the profusion of flowers. She could hear muffled little exclamations of pleasure from her sister and slowly made her way toward them. There were so many paths winding through the garden; it was a good place to get lost in.
She stopped and took several long deep breaths. It was tempting to storm off and tell Clarissa about his attempt to bribe her—her sister would be furious, too—but it would only upset her. And Lord Salcott was Clarissa’s guardian, after all. She would have to work with him.
And it wasn’t an ungenerous offer, just an unreasonable one. Totally unreasonable.
She noticed a clump of lamb’s ears and bent to pick a leaf. It reminded her of the lambs they’d fed when she and Clarissa were small. She stood stroking its furry silvery leaf reflectively.
Those hard, gray, judgmental eyes. And what did he think he was playing at in that first interview, pretending he was talking to Clarissa all the time? He might not be talking to Izzy, but he wasn’t ignoring her, either. Was that masculine speculation lurking in his gaze? It was hard to tell.
It was a shame he was such a closed-minded cold fish of a man. He was otherwise quite good-looking. She scowled. And didn’t he know it?
Her father’s male guests all considered themselves fine fashionable fellows—dandies even—but this man put them all to shame with his severely pruned-back elegance: snug-fitting buff breeches, an elegantly cut dark blue coat, a stylish neckcloth and gleaming top boots. No jangle of fobs and seals for him, either, just a plain gold watch chain.
But “handsome is as handsome does,” as Nanny used to say. Izzy tossed the lamb’s ear aside. Lord Salcott seemed intent on squashing Izzy and her imagined pretensions likea bug. Before he knew whether she even had any pretensions.
