A Wallflower Christmas (Wallflowers #5)(19)

Bowman followed at once, walking beside the benches as she made a circle around them. “So your Mr. Clark has never made an advance to you?”

Hannah shook her head, hoping he would ascribe her rising color to the cold temperature. “He’s not my Mr. Clark. As for making an advance…I’m not altogether certain. One time he …” Realizing what she had been about to confess, she closed her mouth with a snap.

“Oh, no. You can’t leave that dangling out there. Tell me what you were going to say.” Bowman’s fingers slipped beneath the fabric belt of her dress and he tugged firmly, forcing her to stop.

“Don’t,” she said breathlessly, scowling from her superior vantage on the bench.

Bowman put his hands at her waist and swung her to the ground. He kept her standing before him, his hands lightly gripping her sides. “What did he do? Say something lewd? Try to look down your bodice?”

“Mr. Bowman,” she protested with a helpless scowl. “Approximately a month ago, Mr. Clark was studying a book of phrenology, and he asked if he could feel my …”

Bowman had gone still, the spice-colored eyes widening ever so slightly. “Your what?”

“My cranium.” Seeing his blank expression, Hannah went on to explain. “Phrenology is the science of analyzing the shape of someone’s skull and.”

“Yes, I know. Every measurement and indentation is supposed to mean something.”

“Yes. So I allowed him to evaluate my head and make a chart of any shapings that would reveal my character traits.”

Bowman seemed vastly entertained. “And what did Clark discover?”

“It seems I have a large brain, an affectionate and constant nature, a tendency to leap to judgment, and a capacity for strong attachment. Unfortunately there is also a slight narrowing at the back of my skull that indicates criminal propensities.”

He laughed in delight. “I should have guessed. It’s always the innocent-looking ones who are capable of the worst. Here, let me feel it. I want to know how a criminal mind is shaped.”

Hannah ducked away quickly as he reached for her. “Don’t touch me!”

“You’ve already let one man fondle your cranium,” he said, following as she backed away. “Now it makes no difference if you let someone else do it.”

He was playing with her, Hannah realized. Although it was altogether improper, she felt a giggle work up through the layers of caution and anxiety. “Examine your own head,” she cried, fleeing to the other side of the fountain. “I’m sure there are any number of criminal lumps on it.”

“The results would be skewed,” he told her. “I received too many raps on the head during my childhood. My father told my tutors it was good for me.”

Though the words were spoken lightly, Hannah stopped and regarded him with a flicker of compassion. “Poor boy.”

Bowman came to a stop in front of her again. “Not at all. I deserved it. I’ve been wicked since birth.”

“No child is wicked without a reason.”

“Oh, I had a reason. Since I had no hope of ever becoming the paragon my parents expected, I decided to go the other way. I’m sure it was only my mother’s intervention that kept my father from tying me to a tree beside the road with a note reading ‘Take to orphanage.’ “

Hannah smiled slightly. “Is there any offspring your father is pleased with?”

“Not especially. But he sets store by my brother-in-law Matthew Swift. Even before he married Daisy, Swift had become like a son to my father. He worked for him in New York. An unusually patient man, our Mr. Swift. Otherwise he couldn’t have survived this long.”

“Your father has a temper?”

“My father is the kind of man who would lure a dog with a bone, and when the dog is in reach, beat him with it. And then throw a tantrum if the dog doesn’t hurry back to him the next time.”

He offered Hannah his arm again, and she took it as they headed back toward the manor.

“Did your father arrange the marriage between your sister and Mr. Swift?” she asked.

“Yes. But somehow it seems to have turned into a love match.”

“That happens sometimes,” she said wisely.

“Only because some people, when faced with the inevitable, convince themselves they like it merely to make the situation palatable.”

Hannah made a soft tsk tsk with her tongue. “You’re a cynic, Mr. Bowman.”

“A realist.”

She gave him a curious glance. “Do you think you might ever fall in love with Natalie?”

“I could probably come to care for her,” he said casually.

“I mean real love, the kind that makes you feel wildness, joy, and despair all at once. Love that would inspire you to make any kind of sacrifice for someone else’s sake.”

A sardonic smile curved his lips. “Why would I want to feel that way about my wife? It would ruin a perfectly good marriage.”

They walked through the winter garden in silence, while Hannah struggled with the certainty that he was even more dangerous, more wrong for Natalie, than she had originally believed. Natalie would eventually be hurt and disillusioned by a husband she could never trust.

“You are not suitable for Natalie,” she heard herself say wretchedly. “The more I learn about you, the more certain I am of that fact. I wish you would leave her alone. I wish you would find some other nobleman’s daughter to prey upon.”