Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,1
his next excellent volume of history were he to spend all his hours talking about it and none setting the actual words to paper.”
Martin reddened. “You have a point, Lord Hastings.”
“I always have a point. I understand that you are here to work and that you’ve asked Lord Wrenworth to put a nice, quiet room at your disposal. You haven’t put that room to use, have you?”
Martin reddened further. “Ah—”
“I personally cannot wait for the next appearance of Offa of Mercia.”
“You’ve read the book?”
“Of course. Why do you look so surprised? Did I not display a ferocious intelligence and a wide-ranging curiosity when I was at university?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then consider yourself honored to count me among your readership. Now off you go. Write deep into the night. And stop monopolizing Miss Fitzhugh. You are a married man, remember?”
Martin chuckled uneasily and rose. Miss Fitzhugh shot Hastings an icy look. He ignored it, shooed Martin away, and took the spot on the chaise the latter had vacated.
“I don’t believe you read Mr. Martin’s book.”
Hastings read every book she published from cover to cover, even the ones she took on purely for financial gain. “First page and last page—and did I not sound impressive discussing it?”
Her gaze brimmed with disdain. “You sounded pompous and overbearing, Hastings. And to dismiss my friend from my presence? Truly, I expected better, even of you.”
He leaned back against the armrest of the chaise. “Let us spend no more words on Mr. Martin, who is surely beneath your notice. I’d much prefer to speak of how delicious you look tonight, my dear Miss Fitzhugh.”
He was not subtle about where his gaze dropped: directly into her décolletage. He’d loved her since before she’d sprouted breasts, and felt no compunction in enjoying the sight of them anytime her neckline allowed.
In reaction she snapped open her fan and neatly blocked his view of her bosom. “Don’t let me keep you, Hastings. Mrs. Ponsonby is trying to get your attention, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You are not mistaken,” he murmured. “They are all trying to get my attention, all the women I’ve ever met.”
“I know how this goes. You want me to protest that I’ve never wanted your attention. Then you’d counter that I’ve only ever pretended to ignore you, and that all along my indifference was my pitiful attempt to pique your curiosity.”
She sounded half-bored. He used to be able to anger her to a greater intensity, and for longer duration. More than even her scorn he feared her apathy—the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference: to exist in such proximity to her, yet make no impression upon her awareness, upon her soul.
He tsked. “Miss Fitzhugh, I am never that unoriginal. Of course you want my attention, but it is only so you can toss it back into my face. You take great pleasure in thwarting me, my dear.”
A spark flashed in her eyes—gone almost before he’d perceived it. He lived for those moments—moments when she was forced to look at him as who he was, instead of who she believed him to be.
The worst thing about falling in love with her so early in life was that he’d been an absolute snot at fourteen, at once arrogant and self-pitying. Almost as bad was the fact that he’d been nearly half a foot shorter than she at their first meeting—she’d been five foot nine, and he barely five foot four. Though she was only a few weeks older than he was, she’d looked upon him as a child—while he broiled with the heat and anguish of first love.
When nothing else garnered him her attention, he turned horrid. She was disgusted by this midget who tried to trick her into broom closets to steal kisses, and he was at once miserable and thrilled. Disgust was better than indifference; anything was better than indifference.
By the time his height at last exceeded hers—six foot two to her five foot eleven—and his baby fat melted away to reveal cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds, her opinion was firmly set against him. And he, no longer self-pitying but prouder than ever, refused to humble himself and ask for a fresh chance.
Not that he didn’t want to. Every time he came across her, with her perfect assurance, her winsome face, her lithe, sylphlike figure, he meant to repent aloud of all his past stupidity.
Yet all he ever did was further his record of obnoxiousness. A women’s college, is that what they call a hotbed of lesbianism