Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(9)

He bowed, proffering his elbow in feigned docility. “Sad, isn’t it?”

She looked at his arm with sudden suspicion, but was forced by her own rigid propriety to take it. Griffin tamped down a surge of triumph.

“What is?” she asked, her voice wary.

“Oh, that a woman as pious as you should have to put up with the company of a rake like me merely because of polite convention.”

“Humph.” She lifted her chin as he led her slowly through the crowd. “I hope I know my duty.”

He rolled his eyes. “Buck up. Enduring my presence in your life will surely give you points toward sainthood.”

If he hadn’t turned to look at her at that very moment, he would’ve missed the twitch of her soft, pink lips. Egad. Lady Perfect had a sense of humor! He’d seen her smile, but the expression had been fixed and immobile. What would a genuine smile look like on her face? What would happen if she actually laughed?

Intrigued, he bowed his head toward hers, inhaling the scent of flowers. “If you aren’t marrying my brother for his title, then why?”

Wide gray eyes looked up, startled, into his. She was so near he only had to lean an inch or so closer and his lips would touch hers. He could find out what she tasted like, if she would break under his tongue and run soft and sweet like honey.

Good God! Griffin jerked his head back.

Fortunately, she seemed to have missed his confusion. “What do you mean?”

He inhaled and glanced away. They were nearly across the room now and moving in the opposite direction from Thomas, though she didn’t seem to notice. He was playing with fire, but he’d always found danger terribly tempting.

“Why marry Thomas?”

“My brother and he are friends. Maximus urged me to make the match.”

“That’s all?”

“No, of course not. My brother would not have considered Mandeville for me if the marquess weren’t well regarded, kind, and a man of substance.” She rattled off his brother’s attributes as if listing the points of a breeding ram.

“You don’t love him?” he asked with honest curiosity.

She knit her brows as if he’d burst into Swedish. “I have no doubt that I will someday have affection for him, naturally.”

“Naturally,” he murmured, feeling again that idiotic triumph. “Rather like a favorite spaniel, perhaps?”

She stopped dead, and if she hadn’t been restrained by her propriety, he had the feeling she would’ve set her hands on her hips like an irate fishwife. “Mandeville isn’t a spaniel!”

“A Great Dane, then?”

“Lord Griffin…”

He tugged her forward, leading her toward the outside edge of the ballroom. “It’s just that I’ve always thought it would be nice.”

“What?”

“To be in love with one’s wife—or in your case, one’s husband.”

Her face softened for a moment, her gray eyes going a little foggy, her sweet lips parting. Griffin found himself drawn to her fleeting emotion. Was this a glimpse of the true Lady Hero?

Then she was back to being Lady Perfect, her spine erect, her lips firm, and her eyes giving nothing away. The change was rather fascinating. What had made her into such a chameleon?

“How romantic,” she drawled in a bored, social voice that set his teeth on edge, “to think that love has anything to do with marriage.”

“Why?”

“Because marriage at our rank is a contract between families—as you well know.”

“But can’t it be more?”

“You’re deliberately being obtuse,” she said impatiently. “You don’t need me to explain society’s rules to you.”

“And you’re being deliberately thickheaded. My parents had it.”

“What?”

“Love,” he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “They loved each other. I know it’s rare, but it is possible, even if you’ve never seen it—”

“My parents, too.”

It was his turn to look confused. “What?”

Her head was bent so that he saw only her mouth, curved down in sadness. “My parents. I have memories of… of a deep affection between them.”

He remembered suddenly—awfully—that her parents had been killed. It had been a cause célèbre over fifteen years before—the Duke and Duchess of Wakefield murdered outside a theater by common footpads. “I’m sorry.”

She inhaled and glanced up, her face unbearably vulnerable for a moment. “Don’t be. Hardly anyone mentions them to me. It’s as if they’d never existed. I was in the schoolroom when they died, but I have a few fond memories of them, before… before it happened.”

He nodded, feeling a protective tenderness for this proud, prickly woman. They strolled in silence for a moment, the crowd surging around them, but making no contact. It was as if they were strangely apart. Griffin inclined his head to one or two people as they met, but he kept walking, forestalling conversation.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said after a bit. “Marriage with love between the partners is surely the ideal.”

“Then why settle for less?”

“Love may grow between a husband and a wife after marriage.”