When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,36
I like scandalous biographies and the tales travelers tell of strange foreign countries, and I love terrible tragedies with innocent heroines.”
He could just imagine her curled in the corner of a library, reading her books. Something about the image drew him, and he was puzzled. It was a picture of Messalina not under his sway, not helping him to achieve his goals, but simply being.
Simply content.
He shook the thought away and said gruffly, “I suppose a few books in the library at Whispers wouldn’t be amiss.”
Her smile was glorious. “Thank you.”
He couldn’t stop himself asking, “Are books your only pleasure?”
“Oh, of course not. I enjoy listening to music, though I have no talent myself, and my voice is quite atrocious, my sister assures me. I like the theater”—she nodded at the stage—“and opera and really most entertainments. Riding is a pleasure, as is strolling, especially if it involves shopping. I adore shopping, as I think you now know.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “After all, unlike you, I don’t need to earn my bread. My time is entirely free to do as I wish with. You must think me—my family and the aristocracy as a whole—such lazy beasts.”
He pressed his lips together at that because the aristocracy were lazy beasts. He’d always known that.
But he didn’t want to hurt her.
“I think,” he said carefully, “that most of humanity is born to labor. A very few are born lucky and never know want. The latter often confuse luck with divine righteousness.”
She said softly, “I’m not sure what you mean?”
He looked at her and saw that her head was tilted inquisitively.
He frowned. “Many of your peers think that they come by their birth—their lucky birth—because they are superior to the common man. That being born rich means they are more intelligent, better able to lead, and have a better sense of morality. That God or whatever divinity they believe in made them so and put them on the earth to rule over other, lesser people.” His lip curled slowly. “They are wrong. God does not crown kings. Mankind does.”
Her lips had parted during his diatribe, and she looked at him now almost in wonder. “You are a philosopher, sir.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You mock me.”
“No.” She laid her hand over his on the arm of the chair. “No, I am not mocking you. You yourself said that no man is better than another by right of birth. It seems to me, then, that the reverse must be true as well. No man is worse than any other because of his birth. And that means that you, Gideon Hawthorne, my uncle’s henchman, might be a philosopher every bit as intelligent as those who write learned books.”
Her smile was teasing, but her words were serious.
And they moved him.
He turned his hand over so that he grasped her delicate fingers, raising them to brush his lips against her knuckles.
Her fingers trembled. He had a sudden wish that they were somewhere else—somewhere private—where they could spend the evening discussing the books she read and the differing thoughts they had. Where he might, at the end of the night, taste the rose red of her lips.
Instead of doing the work he needed to do tonight.
But that was impossible, so he said, “I’m lucky to have you as my wife, madam.”
She raised a brow. “I think luck had very little to do with it.”
He was about to retort when the curtain of the box opened behind them and two people entered.
The Duke of Windemere stood there, his smile disarmingly benevolent. “Ah, I was told I might find you here. The gossips are in full cry in the lobby.” The old man’s gaze speared Gideon. “I say, Hawthorne, didn’t your loving wife tell you to dress for the theater?”
“I did not expect to see you this evening, Your Grace.” Gideon pulled his hand from Messalina’s grasp, curling his fingers into fists. He forced a smile to his lips. “And in my box. I’m honored, of course, but surprised you’re out so late. At your age, I mean.”
Windemere didn’t like that at all. Any mention of his mortality reminded him of who would succeed him.
The duke’s upper lip curled into a soundless snarl.
Gideon rose to bend over the duchess’s hand. She was a meek little thing, the third of Windemere’s wives, and, like the others, childless, despite three years of marriage. “Your Grace. I trust you are in good health?”
The duchess blushed. She couldn’t be more than two and twenty.