that Joshua had his eye on Bolderwood’s wife. It was Joshua’s frank declaration of Lady Bolderwood’s lack of appeal that had earned him the punch.
“Anyway, please desist from any arguments tonight, and behave like a polite gentleman.”
“Smug and idle, you mean? Wasting hours tying my cravat and composing stupid odes to women’s eyes? Is that your notion of the ideal husband?”
She flashed a half-smile and he realized that, yes, that was her ideal. After all, useless, pretty Bolderwood had almost been her husband.
“Too bad,” he said, irritated with her again. “I might have been a polite gentleman, but I’m not. And I’m glad of it. I’m a businessman, a Birmingham man. Everyone in Birmingham walks fast, did you know that? Because we all have purpose and activity. And as for these polite gentlemen of yours, strolling about with fancy cravats because they have nothing else to do with their time—bah! What a shame you didn’t manage to marry one of them.”
“Never mind that now. You are not the kind of husband I need, but you are the one I have. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” she added hastily. “I am immensely sensible of the sacrifice you made in marrying me.”
He shrugged and wandered away from her. “No sacrifice,” he said. “It means no one else can try to marry me. I don’t want a wife, so one who hardly exists suits me well. The sooner you can go back to not existing, the better.”
Silence filled the room, as if he had already gotten his wish. He resisted the urge to check that she was still there.
Until she came to his side and laid a hand on his arm, her expression soft and pleading.
“I know you are not that man, but could you not pretend?”
“Pretend to be someone I’m not?” He jerked his arm away from her. “Unlike you, I do not need everyone to like me. I have some pride.”
“Some of us haven’t the luxury of pride.” Something hard flashed in her eyes. “I need everyone to like me because then they will invite me into society, speak well of me, and overlook the fact that I am married to the rudest man in England. They will be more likely to welcome my sister into society and less likely to object if someone wishes to marry her. And if Lucy does something dreadful, we are more likely to come out of it all right.” She jabbed a finger at him. “And since your behavior reflects on me, the better you behave, the more likely I am to find a solution to Lucy. After which I shall go back to not existing, as you so charmingly put it, and you can go back to being as rude as you like.”
She maintained her facade, but her little speech was edged with anger, tainted with frustration, searing with the hint that some part of her longed to scream the words and pummel his chest and hurl heavy objects at his head. Her sense of injustice, her lack of power, her subtle strength of character—he imagined them wrestling with each other like drunks in a brawl, wreaking havoc inside her, with only her politeness to keep them locked in.
A better man would help her fight her battles, so she could have some peace.
Well, he was not a better man, and he had battles of his own, and no one saw him going around pestering people for help. Start taking on each other’s burdens and they’d never know when to stop.
Besides, he had agreed to a marriage in name only. Name only. Name. Only.
“What do I get in return?” he said. “For behaving properly and pretending to be someone I’m not?”
“Why would you need something in return?”
“When an employee performs well, I offer a reward. Or when a businessman hesitates on a deal, I throw in an inducement to make him agree.”
“Helping your family should be inducement enough.”
“And yet it is not.”
She considered for a moment. “What do you want, then?”
What he wanted was for her to leave him be, to stop disrupting his life, to stop making him question who he was and how he got here and who he wanted to be.
So he did the obvious thing, really.
He stepped right up to her and pressed a hand to her waist to hold her steady, her body firm and warm under his palm. He lowered his head so his mouth was so close to her ear he could have nibbled it. A lock