watching her with his hawk eyes, and his gaze darkened as he took in the return of the hollows beneath her cheekbones.
He stepped around the imposing desk. “Leave us, Carson.”
That was her moment to protest, but the secretary bowed and scurried toward the exit rather swiftly.
Then it was just the two of them.
Montgomery strolled closer. He was, as usual, exquisitely dressed, his charcoal-gray suit and waistcoat emphasizing the crisp whiteness of his shirt and his fair hair. No, he hadn’t lost an ounce of his attractiveness.
Her innards twisted into a hot ball of dread.
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, Your Grace,” she said.
He halted, processing all the messages she had just conveyed. Then he gestured at the chair opposite his desk. “It’s my duty to receive petitioners. Please, have a seat.”
She sat and busied herself with taking her pen and her tiny notebook from the reticule in her lap. When she finally looked at him, his eyes were oddly soft.
It should have warned her.
“I will not come out in favor of the amendment,” he said.
She blinked as if he had flicked something at her face. “You won’t?”
Of all the scenarios she had anticipated, this one had not occurred to her.
He shook his head.
“But . . . whyever did you agree to meet us?”
The corners of his mouth lifted, and all at once she realized that she had stopped Your Gracing him, that she was questioning him, something a random petitioner would never dare. Oh, blast him.
“I won’t support it,” he said, “but I can give you the names of MPs you should focus on. And I can advise you on how to improve your campaign in general.”
She tried gathering her scattered wits. “You won’t vote in our favor, but you are willing to help?”
“I am not against your proposal on principle, Annabelle.”
A monstrous thought crossed her mind. “Is it . . . Is this personal?”
A small pause ensued. “You think I hold a grudge because you rejected my offer.”
She could only nod.
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Do you genuinely think that? That would hardly be flattering to either of us.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“It is not in my interest to officially support the issue at this point in time,” he said, and she could feel that this was his final word on the matter.
A lump of bone-deep frustration blocked her throat. Why did this feel like a personal betrayal?
She came to her feet, making him stand also.
“This is regrettable,” she said, and, pettily, she added, “I thought you were a fair man.”
His face went blank. “I am,” he said coolly.
“Perhaps you can explain it to me, then,” she said, “how is it fair that my utterly inept cousin is in command of me, for no reason other than that he’s a man and I’m a woman? How is it fair that I master Latin and Greek as well as any man at Oxford, yet I am taught over a baker’s shop? How is it fair that a man can tell me my brain was wired wrong, when his main achievement in life seems to be his birth into a life of privilege? And why do I have to beg a man to please make it his interest that I, too, may vote on the laws that govern my life every day?”
Her voice had turned hectic and sharp, and she was clutching her pen in her fist like a dagger, but she had somehow become incensed beyond caution, her blood a dull roar in her ears. Montgomery was watching her blatantly unfazed, and that made her want to pick up his shiny paperweight and hurl it against the wall, just to hear something crash.
“Oh no, you won’t,” he said, and moved with surprising speed; before she blinked, he was in front of her, crowding her back against his desk.
She glared up at him. His nearness should have irritated her, but this close, she could smell him, his scent familiar and exhilarating, and she wavered. Anguish began creeping into the cracks of her anger.
Her hand with the pen fell useless to her side.
Montgomery made a soothing sound. “That is better,” he said.
“What is?” she said warily.
He took a small step back. “You speaking your mind,” he said, “instead of maintaining that pretense.”
“I assure you, it was not a pretense,” she said stiffly.
“Don’t try to manage me like a fool,” he shot back.