actually,’ she said, relieved to be able to have a question she could answer without having to rack her brains. ‘And I haven’t been here long enough to know whether I prefer it, or not.’
‘But do you have any objection to living in the countryside?’
It was her turn to frown. ‘I cannot tell. I have never lived anywhere but in a town.’
Oh, what a stupid, stupid thing to say. She should have made some remark about how...bustling London was in comparison to Portsmouth, or...or how she missed the sound of the sea. Or even better, asked him about his preferences. That was what men liked, really, wasn’t it? To talk about themselves? Instead, she’d killed the potential conversation stone dead.
They resumed eating in silence for a few more minutes before he made a second, valiant attempt to breach it. ‘Well, do you like children?’
‘Yes, I suppose in a general way,’ though she couldn’t imagine why he might ask that. But at least she’d learned her lesson from last time. She would offer him the chance to talk about himself. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason,’ he said airily, though the faint blush that tinged his cheeks told her he was growing a bit uncomfortable. ‘Just making conversation.’ He reached for his wine glass and curled his fingers round the stem as though in need of something to hang on to. And then blurted, ‘What do people talk about at events like this?’
For the first time in her life, she actually felt sorry for a man. He’d come here expecting to enjoy himself and ended up saddled with the dullest, most boring female in the room. And far from betraying his exasperation with her ignorance, and her timidity, he’d done his best to put her at ease. He’d even been making an attempt to draw her out. And wasn’t finding it easy.
‘I expect it is easier for them,’ she said, indicating the other occupants of the table. ‘That is...I mean...they all know each other already, I think.’
He looked round the table and she couldn’t help contrasting the animated chatter of all the other females, who were universally fluttering their eyelashes at their male companions in the attempt to charm them. Then he looked back at her and smiled.
‘Well, we’ll just have to get to know each other then, won’t we?’
Oh, dear. Did he mean to ask her a lot of highly personal questions? Or expect her to come up with some witty banter, or start flirting like the other women? That’s what came of throwing a man even the tiniest conversational sop. She’d made him think she was interested in getting to know him.
‘What,’ he said abruptly, ‘do you think about climbing boys?’
‘I beg your pardon? Climbing boys?’
‘Yes. The little chaps they send up chimneys.’
All of a sudden, the odd things he said, and the abrupt way he said them reminded her very forcibly of her own brother’s behaviour, when confronted by a female to whom he was not related. He was trying his best, but this was clearly a man who was more at ease in the company of other men. Lord Havelock had no more idea how to talk to a single lady than she had as to how to amuse an eligible male.
He was staring at his plate now, a dull flush mounting his cheeks, as though he knew he’d just raised a topic that was not at all suitable for a dinner table, let alone what was supposed to be the delicate sensibilities of a female.
And once again, she felt...not sorry for him. No, not that. But willing to meet his attempts to entertain her halfway. For he was exerting himself to a considerable extent. A thing no other male she’d ever encountered had ever even considered doing. And though men did not usually want to hear what a woman thought, he had asked, and so she girded up her loins to express her opinion. It wasn’t as if she was ever likely to see him again, so what did it matter if he was offended by it?
‘It is a cruel practice,’ she said. ‘I know chimneys have to be cleaned, but surely there must be a more humane way? I hear there are devices that can produce results that are almost as good.’
‘Devices,’ he said, turning to her with a curious expression.
‘For cleaning chimneys.’
‘Really? I had no idea.’
‘Oh? But then why did you ask me about them?’
His brows drew down irritably.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said hastily, hanging her head meekly. Whatever had possessed her to question him? How could she have forgotten the way her father had reacted should her mother have ever dared to question his motive for saying anything, no matter how absurd?
There was a moment’s awkward pause. She darted him a wary glance to find he’d folded his arms across his chest and was glaring at his plate as though he was contemplating sweeping it, and its contents, from the table before storming off.
A kind of dim terror crept over her. A mist rising up from her past. Her own appetite fled. She pleated her napkin between nervous fingers, fighting to stay calm. He couldn’t very well backhand her out of the chair, she reminded herself. Not even her father had taken such drastic action, when she’d angered him, not in public, at any rate.
No—Lord Havelock was more likely to return her to her chaperon in frosty silence and vow never to have anything to do with her again.
She felt him shift in his seat, next to her. ‘Entirely my fault,’ he growled between clenched teeth. ‘No business bringing such a topic up at a dinner table. Cannot think what came over me.’
The mist shredded, blasted apart by the shock wave of his apology. She turned and stared at him.
‘I dare say you can tell that I’m just not used to conversing with...ladies.’
Good grief. Not only had he apologised, but he, a man, had admitted to having a fault.
‘I...I’m not very good at it myself. Not conversing with ladies, obviously, I can do that. I meant, conversing with members of the opposite...’ She floundered on the precipice of uttering a word that would be an even worse faux pas than mentioning the grim reality of chimney sweeps.
And then he smiled.
A rather devilish smile that told her he knew exactly which word she’d almost said.
With an unholy light in his eyes that sent awareness of her own sex flooding from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her toes.
‘So you found your mouse,’ remarked Morgan, as they strode out into the night.
‘I’ve found a young lady who appears to meet many of my requirements,’ Havelock testily corrected him. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when the bashful creature he’d had to coax out from behind her potted plant had admitted to being an orphan.
‘The only problem is,’ he said with a scowl, ‘the very things I like most about her make it devilish difficult to find out what her character is really like.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it was damn near impossible to pry more than a couple of words out of her at a time.’ To think he’d congratulated himself on so deftly separating her from her more exuberant cousins, only to come unstuck at the dinner table.
‘I made a complete cake of myself.’ He sighed. She wasn’t like the girls he was used to sitting with at such events. Girls who either flirted, or threw out conversational gambits intended to impress and charm. She’d left all the work to him. And he discovered he was a very poor hand at it. In his determination to delve to the heart of her, he’d asked the kind of questions that had both puzzled and alarmed her.
Climbing boys, for God’s sake! Who in their right minds asked a gently reared girl about such a deplorable topic? Over a