“Ancient history, tesoro. What use raking up old ashes?” His gaze fastened on her lips, soft, so soft. “Are you sure you won’t let me kiss you?”
“I must be wise.”
“Wisdom is an overrated virtue, amore mio.”
She cast him an unimpressed look. “You’re no expert on virtue.”
“Virtue is my foe. I’ve devoted great study to it.”
He watched her struggle to summon some crushing remark and decided to rescue her. “How did you sneak away from Barstowe Hall?”
“Roberta’s help.”
“Even so, surely some guardian must barricade the garden gate against swains vying to glimpse the fair Sidonie.”
“William has been my guardian since my father died six years ago,” she said flatly.
All desire to smile left Jonas. Instead, a sickening suspicion set his gut heaving. “Good God, don’t tell me the blackguard hits you, too?”
“Jonas, you’re hurting my hand.”
“I’m a clumsy dog,” he muttered, loosening his grip. “If he hit you, I’ll vivisect the worm.”
“William has never hit me.” She stroked his cheek, the first time she’d willingly touched him. In her eyes, he saw
a softness he couldn’t remember before, even when he’d kissed her.
“Why should you be safe?” Yet as he stared into the beautiful face that conveyed strength as well as allure, he guessed why. Jonas was long past crediting his foul cousin with anything like shame. But under Sidonie’s clear gaze, perhaps even William retrieved some vestige of honor.
“We mostly live apart.” She paused and her earlier inexplicable discomfort returned. “I run Barstowe Hall with the pittance he sends. And there’s always written work for a bluestocking like me. Lately, I’ve catalogued William’s library.” She spoke reluctantly, although Jonas couldn’t imagine why. The subject was hardly controversial. She was as jumpy talking about her life with William and Roberta as she was when Jonas touched her. Almost.
“Anything interesting?”
She avoided his eyes. “Your father took all the valuable books before his death, as you well know.”
Her existence sounded like drudgery. And lonely. But he made himself smile. “So what prompted my cousin’s sudden bibliophilia?”
“He’s selling what’s left, of course. Surely you know how close to the wind he’s sailing. The last of Roberta’s dowry went earlier this year in some scheme for South Seas emerald mining.”
“My cousin never had the touch in business.”
She cast him a disapproving look. “No need to sound so smug. You know he’s reckless to compete with you.”
“If he’d cut his coat to fit his cloth when he inherited, he could have lived perfectly comfortably at Barstowe Hall.” Jonas was deliberately disingenuous. William was a heaving mass of jealousy, conceit, and bluster. He’d never accept life as a quiet country squire while his bastard cousin turned the world on its ear. “The man’s his own worst enemy.”
“I’d feel no compunction gloating over William’s disasters if my sister and nephews weren’t plunged into penury with him.”
“What about your penury? You’re damned quick to care about the fate of Roberta and her brats.”
She raised her chin. “In two months, I turn twenty-five. William’s guardianship ends and I’ll receive an allowance from my father’s will. It’s not much—a plutocrat like you would scoff—but it will establish me away from my brother-in-law’s tantrums. I have plans for a useful future. I intend to set up a house of my own and teach indigent girls to read so they can make their way in the world.”
The idea of Sidonie slaving her life away as a spinster schoolmistress struck him as a tragic waste, but he knew better than to say so. He’d caught the militant light in her eye when she mentioned the unappealing scheme. “I’m surprised William hasn’t married you off. Especially if you already have a dowry.”
“I meant it when I said I’d never wed.” Whatever she saw in his smile, it discomfited her enough to make her try to shift away. He didn’t let her go. He began to suffer the alarming fantasy that he’d never let her go.
“Not all husbands are like William. Or like your father.”
Her expression turned bleak. “It’s pure luck, though, isn’t it? The law gives a husband ownership of his wife. I value my judgment too dearly to sacrifice it to another’s. And there’s no escape—the contract binds until death. A married woman is little better than a slave.”