A Study In Seduction(74)

“Then why?” he asked, his voice tight.

She shook her head.

Frustration spiraled through him again, winding into his chest. “I will not tolerate this, Lydia. You have one more week.”

“This is not like solving a mathematical problem, Alexander.”

“Isn’t it? Aren’t you studying this sort of thing, figuring out equations to explain emotions? Love plus love equals marriage, doesn’t it?”

She drew in a sharp breath, a hard tremble racking her body. He tightened his grip on her, inhaled the perfume of her thick hair.

“Say yes,” he whispered, not knowing if he was referring to his marriage proposal or the lecture series, or both.

Lydia stiffened in his arms, her fingers clutching the lapels of his coat. “No.”

Something broke inside Alexander as that single word rose between them. His brother’s words from so many weeks ago echoed in his head.

Do whatever makes you happy. Oh, no, you’ll never do that, will you?

But Alexander had tried. God in heaven, he’d tried.

He let Lydia go as she pulled away from him. She went to collect the books, tucking them into the crook of her arm. He stared at her profile, the graceful curve of her cheek, and the way a loose tendril of hair spilled over her neck.

Determination swelled anew. He wasn’t finished yet. If Lydia still refused to recognize they were meant to be together, he would find another way to convince her. He needed an ally.





Chapter Twenty




Pencil marks, notes, and scribbled equations marred the pages of her notebook. Lydia leafed through them, attempting to muster the desire to pursue her ideas, to prove that Alexander was wrong. She could quantify love. She could explain attraction through a differential equation, could establish patterns of intimacy.

She just no longer wanted to.

She looked at all the notes she’d made about Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere, Helen and Paris, Petrarch and Laura. Her equations could never explain the one common element of those relationships—the fact that none of them ended well. For all their passion and emotions and desire, none of the couples lived a joyful, fulfilling life together.

So dr/dt = a11 r + a12 j mattered not a whit since, ultimately, it equaled unhappiness. Not to mention a frequent untimely death.

I propose, Miss Kellaway, that you throw your infernal notebook into the fire and leave me the bloody hell alone.

A faint smile tugged at Lydia’s mouth. She snapped the notebook closed and stared at the fire. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the notebook into the flames.

It fell open, pages fluttering in the heat before the paper caught and began to burn. Her writings, her numbers, her equations, blackened and curled in the fire.

She watched until the book burned to ashes. A sense of freedom spun through her. She’d get another notebook—she was, after all, a mathematician to the bone—but no longer would she devote her time and intellect to fictional relationships that ended in tragedy.

Life was too valuable, love too precious, to be measured.

She turned away and swiped at a stray tear. When Alexander had first held the door open for her all those weeks ago, she hadn’t imagined so many subsequent doors would open as well. Without him, she never would have ventured forth again. Not in mathematics. Not in life. Certainly not in love.

She tried to imagine agreeing to his suggestion, presenting her ideas to an audience of her colleagues. Her prime number theorem or the lemma of—

Oh, Lydia. Stop being foolish. What have you been telling Alexander all this time?

Strengthening her resolve, Lydia brushed off her skirts and went upstairs to the schoolroom. Jane stood beside the fern near the window, a metal apparatus in one hand, while their grandmother busied herself organizing Jane’s books.

“It’s looking lovely.” Lydia stopped to examine the fern, which had grown green and lush in the past few weeks. “What is that?”

“It mists water onto the fronds. Lord Rushton told me how to care for it.” Jane put the bell glass back over the plant and turned away. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought we might go over long division again.”

“I’ve actually got something else to do.” Jane dropped the apparatus onto the windowsill and left the room.

“Is she all right?” Lydia asked Mrs. Boyd.

“As far as I know, yes. Why?”

“I’ve hardly seen her since I returned from Floreston Manor.” Lydia frowned. “You don’t suppose she’s upset that she wasn’t able to come along?”