Marquesses at the Masquerade(31)
“No, I mean that as your employer and thus the person concerned with your welfare, I wish to know what plans you have for when Socrates no longer needs a companion.”
She pressed her lips together and returned her attention to the long fur on Socrates’s ears. “My plans are not your concern.”
“Of course they are,” he insisted. “I’m the only man responsible for your safety, as far as I can tell.”
“I don’t need a man or anyone else to be responsible for my safety.”
“Yes, you do,” he said impatiently. Since she wouldn’t look up at him, he dropped to a crouch right in front of her. That, she could not ignore, and her head came up. “You’re being obtuse, Rosamund. Do you want to go back to being a seamstress, so that you can work from dawn to dusk and earn barely enough to keep yourself alive?”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I will be fine.”
“But I will worry. Do you think I want to think of you alone and vulnerable out in the world?”
She made a dismissive sound. “Disaster is hardly waiting behind every corner.”
He reached for patience, realizing with a hitch of anxiety that Rosamund was too spirited to be simply bullied into doing what he wanted. “It is when you don’t have money. Which you don’t, or you wouldn’t have been working as a seamstress and looking so hungry.”
“Looking hungry?” She had the nerve to roll her eyes, and he wanted to grab her and shake her—and kiss her—until she understood what good sense he was making. “Now you are being presumptuous. My lord—”
“Marcus.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Marcus, Marcus Hallaway.”
“Fifth Marquess of Boxhaven,” she supplied.
“But Marcus to you.”
Color flared in her cheeks. “I’m a dog’s companion! A dog’s companion doesn’t call a marquess by his Christian name.”
“Since a dog’s companion is untested ground,” he said, “I think we can establish our own rules. Call me Marcus.”
“Fine, Marcus.”
He drew in a breath, tamping down his frustration. He had to make her see that what he was offering was her best possible choice. Life presented so few options to a woman like her, but she did have choices, and he meant for her to have the best. “Think about it, Rosamund. I could set you up in a lovely little cottage somewhere. You wouldn’t even have to go back to London if you didn’t want to.”
“And then you would come and visit me, I suppose?”
“Yes, as often as I could. Rosamund, I quite like you.”
Rosamund, her heart sinking into her well-worn half boots, looked at Marcus crouched before her and forced herself to see not merely the man who had kissed her so passionately and just admitted he quite liked her. Because she loved that man. There was no use in avoiding the truth. Marcus was kind and good and smart and achingly handsome and desirable, and she loved him.
But he was also a wealthy aristocrat, the pinnacle of everything their society valued, and thus not for her. How could he ask her to surrender herself to him, to give up all hope of respectability? And, most painful of all, to become to him an amusement for which he made time?
“And when you marry?” she made herself ask.
He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I am not in a rush to get married.”
“But there is someone special, isn’t there? Wasn’t there a mystery lady you and your grandmother were discussing?” She ought not to hope that he would abandon Poppy, since she was Poppy, and she treasured that he had been so smitten, even as she felt impatient that the thin veil of illusion was of so much more value than a flesh and blood woman.
He frowned. “There was someone who I thought was special, but I don’t know—” He cut himself off abruptly, as if he could not say anything further on the topic. “Rosamund, you and I might have a great deal of time together. I would make sure you were always well taken care of.” He cleared his throat. “And I would of course see to any children who resulted.”
She felt sick at the thought of children. Not of having children—nothing would have made her happier than to share children with a man she loved who loved her too. But that was the problem: She loved a man, but he didn’t love her.
Marcus liked her a great deal, she knew that. And he wanted her, quite a lot, considering the offer he was making. But his sights were rightly set on marrying a woman from the realm of lords and ladies. This was how life functioned, and one young woman from a scandal-plagued family who was facing an accusation of theft wouldn’t change that.
She stood up, needing to put distance between them, but he followed suit. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Very well, I won’t.”
Anger flickered in his eyes, though he kept his tone reasonable. “It’s the only good choice before you, Rosamund.”
Realistically, it probably was. Her wages for the time with Socrates would take her far, but they wouldn’t provide security. Marcus was offering her security, because she knew that once he assumed responsibility for her, he would never shirk it, no matter if he married or simply lost interest in her. He was that good of a man. A man who was entirely worthy of her love, but who could never be hers.