He was a good man, and he cared about her well-being. His looks, scent, and dress sense were perfectly agreeable, and she expected he had a housekeeper to do the housework, so she would have her head and hands free for assisting him. He was also not an easy man—he was wholly cerebral and irritable, and he’d spend most of his life in his books, but given that she was used to that, she’d deal with it well.
But could she imagine him coming home, and loosening his cravat, and sliding his shirt off his shoulders, and have him cover her with his bare body—
She felt herself flush. “You . . . you mentioned not wanting any children,” she said.
Jenkins sat up straighter, sensing they were moving into a negotiation. “I don’t mind them as a concept. But for us, well, they would be beside the point, would they not?”
“Most people would argue that the point of marriage is children.”
Jenkins made a face. “Most people are bleating fools. My wife would have to understand and assist my work. I am my work. And if you were a man, you’d already be making a name for yourself in our field, given how good you are, but the moment you began to breed, you would become utterly addlebrained, all your razor-sharp thinking blunted by the relentless demands of squalling brats. You would lose a few teeth, too; trust me, I have seen all of it happen to each of my six sisters.”
She should take offense. In the history of marriage proposals, this had to be the most shockingly unromantic one ever uttered. But then, as a near-felon, she was not much of a catch, and it was still more respectable than her other offer, the one for the position as a kept woman.
Her silence seemed to make Jenkins nervous. He fiddled with his pen. “Have I perhaps drawn the wrong conclusion?” he asked. “Since you seemed to be a spinster by choice, I didn’t think a family was your priority.”
She had to force herself to look him in the eye. “I just wondered whether you are proposing a marriage in name only.”
To his credit, he did not reply at once but seemed to weigh the question with the consideration it was due. “Is that what you would prefer?” he finally said. His eyes were unreadable behind his reflecting glasses, but his shoulders appeared tense.
Yes would have been the obvious answer to his question. Then again, on paper, he was more than what she could have ever hoped for: an academic, comfortable, and free to ignore the more petty social mores under the guise of brilliant eccentricity. Most important, she liked him. Liked, not loved. He’d never have the power to crush her heart. But if she refused him the marriage bed, would he respect her decision without growing surly over time?
“I would like some time to consider the proposal,” she heard herself say. “A week. If that is agreeable to you.”
Jenkins nodded after a brief pause. “A week. Perfectly agreeable.”
A week. A week to consider an alternative to going back to Gilbert’s house. To tell him that studying had been too much of a challenge for her female brain after all, and that she’d gladly be an unpaid drudge for the rest of her days, with no certain future. Perhaps it wouldn’t even come to the workhouse. Perhaps she’d end up in Bedlam, muttering to herself that she’d had dukes and Oxford dons vying for her attention in days gone by.
She left the office, thinking she should have just said yes.
* * *
A duke had no business attending an investment summit. Glances followed Sebastian around Greenfield’s town house, and he knew he would have raised less gossip trawling a low-class bordello. But men like Julien Greenfield wouldn’t pass insider information on to Sebastian’s investment manager, nor over a discreet dinner; officially grace my home, and receive first-class intelligence in return, that was the deal. Even business was never to be had without the politics, certainly not without the petty power plays.
Greenfield plucked two brandy tumblers from a tray floating past. “I suggest we proceed to the sitting room; these chaps are really keen to make your personal acquaintance,” he said, handing one glass to Sebastian and wrapping his plump hand around the other.
Sebastian carried his untouched drink down the corridor, listening to Greenfield’s assessment of the diamond mine of which Sebastian planned to become a shareholder. The two South