Chin high, she swung to face Jack. “Now, Mr. Lester. Perhaps we may speak plainly.”
“Precisely my thinking,” Jack replied, strolling forward until he stood directly before her, no more than a foot away.
Mentally cursing, Sophie had to lift her head higher to meet his eyes.
“Perhaps,” Jack suggested, “we could start with what, precisely, you think to achieve with all the gentlemen you’ve been so busily collecting?”
“A most pertinent point,” Sophie agreed. She took a moment to marshall her thoughts, then began, her tone calm and quietly determined. “As I believe I told you, my first Season, four years ago, was cut very short.”
Jack nodded curtly.
“As you also know, not only my aunt, but all my mother’s friends are very keen…” Sophie paused, then amended, “Positively determined that I should wed. Indeed—” she met Jack’s gaze challengingly “—I can see no other alternative.”
A muscle shifted in Jack’s jaw. “Quite.”
“Thus,” Sophie continued, “I must set about…er, gathering suitable suitors.” She frowned slightly. Put like that, it sounded decidedly cold.
Jack frowned too. “Why?”
Sophie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Jack gritted his teeth and hung on to his temper. “Why do you need a whole pack of eligibles? Won’t one do?”
Sophie frowned again, but this time at him. “Of course not,” she answered, irritated by what could only be deliberate obtuseness. She drew herself up, her own eyes glittering. “I refuse to marry a man who does not have at least some of the attributes I consider appropriate.”
Jack’s frown intensified. “What attributes?”
“Attributes such as having estates in the country and a willingness to spend most of the year there. And being fond of children.” Sophie blushed and hurried on, “And who can…can…well, who likes riding and…”
“Who can waltz you off your feet?” Jack’s expression relaxed.
Sophie shot him a wary glance and saw the taunting gleam in his eye. She put up her chin. “There is a whole host of attributes I consider necessary in the gentleman I would wish to marry.”
Jack nodded. “Nevertheless, coming to appreciate the attributes of the gentleman you’re going to marry does not, for my money, necessitate gathering a small crowd with which to compare him.”
“But of course it does!” Sophie glared. “How do you imagine I’m going to know that the one I accept is the right one if I do not—” she gestured with one hand “—look over the field?” Her tone was decidedly belligerent.
Jack frowned, recalling Lucilla’s words. Did Sophie really need to compare him with others to be sure?
“And how,” Sophie demanded, “am I supposed to do that, other than by talking and dancing with them?”
Jack’s lips compressed into a thin line.
Sophie nodded. “Precisely. And I have to say,” she continued, her nose in the air, “that I consider it most unfair of you to get in my way.”
A moment’s silence followed.
“Sophie,” Jack growled, his voice very low, his eyes fixed on Sophie’s face. “Believe me when I say that I have no intention whatever of letting you loose amongst the ton’s bachelors.”
Sophie very nearly stamped her foot. Dragging in a portentous breath, she fixed him with a steely glare. “You are behaving outrageously! You do understand that I must marry, do you not?”
“Yes. But—”
“And that I must therefore choose between whatever suitors I may have?”
Jack’s expression darkened. “Yes. But—”
“Well, then—with all your remarkable experience, perhaps you’d like to tell me how I’m to learn enough about each of them to discover which one will make the best husband?”