chance at heaven. Only this time, she knew the price for it. She was leading him on, letting him believe there was a gentleman of interest. She was leading herself, too. But this time she couldn’t pretend it was a fantasy come to life. She ought to put a stop to it. No good could come of stealing more dances with Jonathon Lashley. She was supposed to win his heart by teaching him French, not by dancing with him. ‘I don’t want charity, Mr Lashley. I can manage my affairs on my own.’ A poor choice of words perhaps.
She felt him stiffen beside her. ‘Charity, is it?’ Now she’d offended him. There probably wasn’t a woman in the ton who viewed a dance with him as charity. ‘Are these French lessons charity? Perhaps I have misunderstood the nature of our association.’
‘They’re not charity, you came to me asking for assistance,’ Claire stammered. She could see where this was going and she had no grounds for argument. She could speak four languages and yet she couldn’t carry on a decent, logical conversation with one attractive man in English.
He gave a ‘my point exactly’ smile. ‘Neither is dancing with you. Dancing, like French lessons, is merely two friends helping one another achieve their goals.’ He gave another considering pause. ‘We are friends, are we not?’
Claire tried to ignore twin sensations that thought evoked—one of them warm and lovely over the thought of being considered Jonathon Lashley’s friend, the other one slightly more practical. ‘I am your French tutor for the time being. Nothing more.’
That gave Jonathon pause. She had him there, but there was no triumph in it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be right. Being right certainly didn’t help her cause. She wasn’t supposed to be driving him away, but drawing him in. Beatrice would kick her if she was here.
‘Is that what you do? Push people away by telling them how inconsequential you are?’ Jonathon drawled slowly. ‘No doubt, it’s a very effective strategy. I feel obliged, however, to tell you it won’t work on me.’ He gave her a devilish wink. ‘In fact, the effect is quite the opposite. You intrigue me. What are you hiding that must be so vociferously protected?’ He grinned. ‘Claire Welton, do you have secrets?’
I’ve been crazy about you since I was nine. ‘I hate to disappoint you, but I’m pretty much an open book.’ Her throat was dry and the words stuck.
Jonathon laughed. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Claire. Don’t ever try out for espionage work.’ He waggled his dark eyebrows in dramatic humour. ‘Everyone has secrets.’
‘Even you?’ She couldn’t resist. It was so much fun to play with him like this. He was alarmingly easy to be with. But she’d known that, she’d always known that. It had been a large part of his appeal from the start. More than being good-looking, Jonathon was good company, a rather subtle trait others took for granted.
He put a hand over his heart in mock shock. ‘Moi? Why, Miss Welton, what a leading question! Are you implying my reputation as a gentleman isn’t pristine?’
She shot him a coy look, daring a bit of flirtation. ‘Well, is it? Pristine?’ She had a sudden urge to know his secrets, to know a piece of him that no one else knew. She’d had a taste of that unknown and she was hungry for another.
There’d been years when he’d been gone, war years. A thought occurred. ‘What do you know of espionage, Mr Lashley?’ she joked.
‘If I knew anything at all I certainly couldn’t tell you. It would defeat the purpose.’ His tone was light, but some of the twinkle had gone out of his eye. Perhaps she’d dared too much. She hadn’t thought.
‘I forget sometimes that you’ve been to war,’ Claire offered, hoping he’d hear the apology in her words. She’d been miserable when he’d gone away. ‘It is difficult to picture you as a soldier.’ That smile, the tailored clothes, the immaculate toilette, all bespoke the well-kept heir, not the soldier.
‘Good.’ His grin was back in full force. ‘Then I have succeeded.’ He bent to pluck a rose from a bush. ‘War is not something anyone should be constantly reminded of. Will you permit me?’ He tucked the blossom in her hair, his fingers brushing the top of her ear. The delicate contact made her shiver. What a dichotomy he was: the warrior, the gentleman, one with perfect manners, the other for whom manners would be a negligible thing. One was safe. The other was dangerous, a man who had seen and done worldly things, who could do those worldly things to her. Another shiver took her. If only the gentleman in him would allow it.
‘Now you know one of my secrets, Claire. You must let me guess one of yours.’ Jonathon tapped a finger against his chin and studied her.
‘But I don’t have any,’ she protested, suddenly flustered. Would he guess? How mortifying would that be? She would have to deny it. He had not moved away after tucking the flower behind her ear. He stood close, his dark head cocked. She scarcely dared to breathe.
‘I know,’ he said after a while. ‘Have you ever been kissed, Claire?’
That was even more embarrassing. Maybe he should have asked if he was her secret crush instead. ‘I cannot possibly answer that. A lady never tells.’ Claire took refuge in the high moral ground.
‘Correction.’ Jonathon leaned an arm against a low-hanging branch, his posture lazy and close. ‘A lady never tells just anyone. A lady might endeavour to tell a friend.’
Back to that, were they? It seemed this conversation had started out with such a discussion before it had meandered in this very dangerous direction. How had they gone from French lessons, to a game of twenty private questions? ‘I had a marriage proposal once.’ There was no good answer. If she said no, he would think her prudish, a dried-up stick. If she said yes, he might think she was loose.
He wagged a scolding finger. ‘Tut-tut, Claire. That’s not what I’m asking. Have. You. Ever. Been. Kissed?’ There were dangerous glints of mischief in his blue eyes now.
She wanted to take a step back, but there was nowhere to go. She dropped her eyes. If she said no, would he kiss her now to remedy it? She hoped not. She didn’t want a charity kiss any more than she’d wanted a charity waltz. And yet, she did want him to kiss her. Just not like that.
‘Ah,’ Jonathon said softly. ‘I have my answer. Never fear, Claire. It will happen when it should.’ He dropped his voice low. ‘Now, we know each other’s secrets. We are really truly friends.’
She should let it be. But the statement provoked Claire. Couldn’t he see how impossible it truly was? ‘Men and women being friends? Is such a thing realisic, Mr Lashley?’ She moved the discussion back to the intellectual high ground where she was more comfortable. This was a debate she could win, although at the moment she wasn’t sure why it was so important to win it.
They began walking again and she was glad to give her body something to do besides look at him, besides imagining a kiss that couldn’t happen. ‘Society doesn’t think so. It has numerous rules in place to keep men and women apart aside from the purpose of marriage.’ She made her case. ‘For instance, does Miss Northam know you visit me daily for French lessons?’ There. That would be a bucket of cold water on a conversation that had gone astray. She already knew the answer. Cecilia had no idea how Jonathon spent his mornings. Most didn’t. It was a source of embarrassment for him. To have those lessons from her, a wallflower out for three years and a noted bluestocking, would further that humiliation no matter how neat the bloodlines of her birth. ‘How would Miss Northam feel if she did know?’ Another rhetorical question. She already knew the answer. ‘Miss Northam would see me as competition.’
‘But that’s ludicrous!’ Jonathon began his rebuttal and she tried not to be hurt by the truth. It was ludicrous. The old doubts surfaced. How could she possibly compete with Cecilia Northam? Why would a man like Jonathon, who had everything, have an illicit interest in someone like her when he had Cecilia draped on his arm.
And yet, it was what she’d hoped for, wasn’t it? Had waited years for: a moment when Jonathon would see her for herself and love her for it.
‘I