A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(40)

“I couldn’t believe how easily you laid him flat,” she said. “And he was so big. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Boxing club.” He stretched his fingers and winced a bit. “All the London bucks are mad for boxing. Gentleman Jackson’s and so forth. The better question is . . .” His voice darkened. “Where did you learn to sing like that?”

“Like what?” She kept her head bowed, examining his wound.

“Like . . . that. I’ve been living in Spindle Cove more than half a year now, and I’ve attended countless numbers of those wretched salons, not to mention all the informal soirees at the rooming house. Church on Sundays. I’ve heard Diana sing many times. I’ve heard Charlotte sing many times. For God’s sake, I’ve even heard your mother sing. But never you.”

She shrugged, tearing off a strip of linen for a bandage. “I’m hardly an accomplished songstress. All I know are the ballads I learned as a girl. Once I grew old enough, I shirked my music lessons whenever possible. I hated the bother of practicing.”

“I won’t believe singing’s a bother to you. And I won’t believe you never practice either, as easily as the words came to you downstairs.”

Minerva felt herself blush. She did practice, when no one was about. Singing to herself when out on her rambles. But since singing to oneself looked about as odd as reading while walking, it wasn’t something she’d admit to him. “I leave the singing to Diana.”

“Ah. You don’t want to outshine her.”

She laughed. “As if I could ever outshine Diana.”

“Diana is rather shiny, I suppose. Golden hair, luminous skin. Sunny disposition. All things radiant. Perhaps you couldn’t outshine her.” He cocked his head and regarded her from a new angle. “But Min? You could outsing her.”

“We’re sisters. Not competitors.”

He made a dismissive noise. “All women are competitors, and sisters most of all. Ladies are perpetually jockeying for position, sizing themselves up against their peers. I can’t tell you how often I’m enjoined to comment on which lady is the prettiest, the wittiest, the most accomplished, the lightest on her feet. And who solicits these opinions? Always women, never men. Men could not care less. About those comparisons, at least.”

She eyed him warily. “What comparisons do men discuss?”

“I’ll answer that some other time. When I’m not bleeding and at a disadvantage.”

Minerva wrapped the bandage tight. “We’re not talking of callow young ladies in society. We’re speaking of Diana. I love my sister.”

“Enough to hide your one talent, just so she won’t suffer by comparison?”

“My one talent?” She cinched the bandage, and he grimaced with pain. “It’s hardly my one talent, or even my best talent.”

“Ah. Now I see how it is.” He nursed his bandaged hand. “You’re every bit as competitive as the rest of them. Only you’re vying for a different title. That of least attractive, least congenial. The least marriageable.”

She blinked at him. He’d doubtless meant the words to tease her, but something in them rang rather true.

“Perhaps I am.” She folded the surplus linen and replaced it in her trunk. “I’m committed to my studies, and I’m not sure I ever want to be married at all. Not to the sort of man my mother would wish, anyhow. So yes, I’ve always been content to let Diana be the prettiest, the most elegant, the kindest. The best singer. She’s welcome to have all the suitors.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Except me.”

“You’re a special case.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

And he really shouldn’t look at her that way. So intensely. Searchingly.

“Why didn’t you marry long ago?” she blurted out. “If you don’t want to sleep alone, marriage would seem the logical solution. You’d have a wife beside you every night.”

He chuckled. “Do you know how many husbands and wives actually sleep in the same bed after the honeymoon?”

“Some marriages are affectionless arrangements, I’m sure. But more than a few are love matches. I can’t imagine you’d have trouble getting women to fall in love with you.”

“But if I married, I should have to keep a woman in love with me. Not just any woman, but one particular woman. For years. And what’s more, I should have to stay in love with her. If by chance I met the woman I wanted to try this with—and I haven’t yet, after years of sampling widely—how could I ever be certain of achieving that? You’re the scientist. You tell me. How can love be proved?”

Minerva shrugged. “I suppose it must be tested.”

“Well, there you have it. I always fail tests.”

She gave him a pitying look. “Yes, of course. We both know that’s why you never earned high marks in maths. It had nothing to do with a lack of effort. You simply couldn’t pass the tests.”

He didn’t answer. Just leaned back in his chair, propped his hands behind his head, and regarded her with an inscrutable expression. Whether his was a gaze of annoyance, admiration, appreciation, or anger, she could not have guessed.