dominated by the men in her life, I suppose,” she said.
He thought about it. “It would have been hard not to be dominated by my uncle,” he said.
“As I thought,” she told him with a curt nod. “Your life has been very lacking in females, has it not, Mr. Thorne? Your mother died when you were no more than a baby. Your aunt was unassertive. Your female cousins married and moved away soon after you went to live with your uncle. Your kinsman in Boston was a widower without children. Your business partner is a man.”
“You are right,” he said after thinking again for a moment.
She would have loved to ask if he had had mistresses, but there were some subjects no lady would touch upon. Ladies were not supposed to know even that such persons existed or that many men used their services. Ladies did know, of course. They were not stupid. At least, most of them were not.
“You know exactly what you are looking for in a wife, then,” she said. “You have a list of attributes in your head. You may even have written them down—perhaps during the voyage here.”
Again there was that suggestion of amusement she had detected in him on a number of occasions, though he did not smile. “I have a good memory, Lady Jessica,” he said. “I believe it is women who like to make written lists.”
How did he know that? But of course he was quite right. How else could a woman plan a party?
“But there is a mental list, is there not?” she insisted. “Or was. You looked at me back at that inn and mentally checked off every point. I was even easy on the eyes. I wonder what number on the list that requirement was. Close to the bottom, at a guess, if not right at the bottom. And were there any qualities of character on the list at all? Or are women not supposed to have qualities of character?”
“You are offended,” he said.
“Yes, I am offended.” She looked up to see that the sun was about to break free of that big cloud. At last. “At your presumption and your arrogance in assuming that I will marry you merely because you are prepared to condescend to marry me. And also—”
“It is hardly condescension to decide to marry the daughter of a duke,” he said. “I am not myself a duke or a royal prince or a king. I am therefore somewhere below you on the social scale.”
“I am the daughter of a duke,” she said, sketching a few circles in the air with one hand. “And that sums it all up, does it not? But that daughter of a duke, Mr. Thorne, is also a person. When you looked at me—at that inn, at the ball two evenings ago, in Avery’s drawing room yesterday, here today—did you see a person? Did you see me? I very much doubt it. You saw and you see the daughter of a duke.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and tipped his head slightly to one side. His eyes and the upper part of his face were half hidden in the shade cast by the brim of his tall hat. He looked awfully . . . appealing. Which fact annoyed her more than anything else. She did not know him either. She knew things about him, more now than she had known half an hour ago, but she did not know him. Why should one find another person appealing based entirely upon physical attributes? He might be an axe murderer for all she knew. Or a miserly businessman who cheated his clients and mistreated his employees and spent his evenings counting his cash.
He obviously had nothing to say in reply to her outburst. Perhaps he did not even know what she was talking about.
Did she?
And when had they stopped walking?
“I am not a commodity,” she told him, “to be bought and sold on the exchange. Have I used the right terminology? Do you not think you should hope to marry me rather than intend it? Do you not think you should work a little—no, that you should work hard—to win me? There must be all sorts of deals you have to work hard to achieve as a businessman. Should not I be at least as big a deal as any of them?”
She did not know quite what she was saying. But she had worked herself into a state of considerable agitation, rare