There’d seemed no harm in allowing Mama to nurse hopes of a proposal from his lordship‘s quarter. Minerva had known for certain a proposal wasn’t coming.
Until this morning, when her certainty crumbled.
“This morning, I was in the All Things shop,” she began. “I usually ignore Sally Bright’s gossip, but today . . .” She met his gaze. “She said you’d given directions for your mail to be forwarded to London, after next week. She thinks you’re leaving Spindle Cove.”
“And you concluded that this means I’ll marry your sister.”
“Well, everyone knows your situation. If you had two shillings to rub together, you’d have left months ago. You’re stranded here until your fortune’s released from trust on your birthday, unless . . .” She swallowed hard. “Unless you marry first.”
“That’s all true.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “I’ll leave in a heartbeat, if you’ll only repeat your words to me from last summer. That you have no intentions toward Diana.”
“But that was last summer. It’s April now. Is it so inconceivable that I might have changed my mind?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” He snapped his fingers. “I know. You think I don’t possess a mind to change. Is that the sticking point?”
She sat forward in her chair. “You can’t change your mind, because you haven’t changed. You’re a deceitful, insincere rake who flirts with unsuspecting ladies by day, then takes up with other men’s wives by night.”
He sighed. “Listen, Miranda. Since Fiona Lange left the village, I haven’t—”
Minerva held up a hand. She didn’t want to hear about his affaire with Mrs. Lange. She’d heard more than enough from the woman herself, who’d fancied herself a poetess. Minerva wished she could scrub her mind of those poems. Ribald, rhapsodic odes that exhausted every possible rhyme for “quiver” and “bliss.”
“You can’t marry my sister,” she told him, willing firmness to her voice. “I simply won’t allow it.”
As their mother was so fond of telling anyone who’d listen, Diana Highwood was exactly the sort of young lady who could set her cap for a handsome lord. But Diana’s external beauty dulled in comparison to her sweet, generous nature and the quiet courage with which she’d braved illness all her life.
Certainly, Diana could catch a viscount. But she shouldn’t marry this one.
“You don’t deserve her,” she told Lord Payne.
“True enough. But none of us get what we truly deserve in this life. Where would God’s sport be in that?” He took the glass from her hand and drew a leisurely sip of wine.
“She doesn’t love you.”
“She doesn’t dislike me. Love’s hardly required.” Leaning forward, he propped an arm on his knee. “Diana would be too polite to refuse. Your mother would be overjoyed. My cousin would send the special license in a trice. We could be married this week. You could be calling me ‘brother’ by Sunday.”
No. Her whole body shouted the rejection. Every last corpuscle.
Throwing off the borrowed greatcoat, she leaped to her feet and began pacing the carpet. The wet folds of her skirt tangled as she strode. “This can’t happen. It cannot. It will not.” A little growl forced its way through her clenched teeth.
She balled her hands in fists. “I have twenty-two pounds saved from my pin money. That, and some change. It’s yours, all of it, if you promise to leave Diana alone.”
“Twenty-two pounds?” He shook his head. “Your sisterly sacrifice is touching. But that amount wouldn’t keep me in London a week. Not the way I live.”
She bit her lip. She’d expected as much, but she’d reasoned it couldn’t hurt to try a bribe first. It would have been so much easier.
She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. This was it—her last chance to dissuade him. “Then run away with me instead.”
After a moment’s stunned pause, he broke into hearty laughter.
She let the derisive sounds wash over her and simply waited, arms crossed. Until his laughter dwindled, ending with a choked cough.
“Good God,” he said. “You’re serious?”
“Perfectly serious. Leave Diana alone, and run away with me.”
He drained the wineglass and set it aside. Then he cleared his throat and began, “That is brave of you, pet. Offering to wed me in your sister’s stead. But truly, I—”
“My name is Minerva. I’m not your pet. And you’re deranged if you think I’d ever marry you.”
“But I thought you just said—”
“Run away with you, yes. Marry you?” She made an incredulous noise in her throat. “Please.”
He blinked at her.
“I can see you’re baffled.”
“Oh, good. I would have admitted as much, but I know what pleasure you take in pointing out my intellectual shortcomings.”
Rummaging through the inside pockets of her cloak, she located her copy of the scientific journal. She opened it to the announcement page and held it out for his examination. “There’s to be a meeting of the Royal Geological Society at the end of this month. A symposium. If you’ll agree to come with me, my savings should be enough to fund our journey.”
“A geology symposium.” He flicked a glance at the journal. “This is your scandalous midnight proposal. The one you trudged through the cold, wet dark to make. You’re inviting me to a geology symposium, if I leave your sister alone.”
“What were you expecting me to offer? Seven nights of wicked, carnal pleasure in your bed?”
She’d meant it as a joke, but he didn’t laugh. Instead, he eyed her sodden frock.
Minerva went lobster red beneath it. Curse it. She was forever saying the wrong thing.
“I’d have found that offer more tempting,” he said.
Truly? She bit her tongue to keep from saying it aloud. How lowering, to admit how much his offhand comment thrilled her. I’d prefer your carnal pleasures to a lecture about dirt. High compliment indeed.
“A geology symposium,” he repeated to himself. “I should have known there’d be rocks at the bottom of this.”
“There are rocks at the bottom of everything. That’s why we geologists find them so interesting. At any rate, I’m not tempting you with the symposium itself. I’m tempting you with the promise of five hundred guineas.”