Free The Seduction of Lady X by Julia London

muttered, and glanced down at her gloves.
    “So . . . if you will kindly remove your cloak and gloves,” he said.
    Miss Hastings did not remove them. She glanced up at him, chewing her bottom lip. “Mr. Tolly . . . I should not like you to think I am ungrateful for your intervention on my behalf, for I am not. But I do not wish to marry you.”
    Surely the foolish girl didn’t believe that he did. “I understand completely,” he said. “No need to say more—”
    “On the contrary, I quite desperately need to say this,” Miss Hastings said earnestly. “I realize that I am in no position to argue, but I really cannot, in good conscience, marry you, for I do not . . .” She glanced around the room as if searching for something, finally fixing on a small porcelain angel Rue had put on an end table. “I do not love you,” she said softly.
    She said it as if he’d made some declaration of his esteem for her, and Harrison couldn’t help smiling. “Of course you do not love me. You scarcely know me.”
    “Yes, well . . . there is also the matter that you are a steward. I had hoped for a better situation.”
    Miss Hastings’s gall was as fascinating as her brutal honesty. But that remark put a small hole in Harrison’s bubble of goodwill. “I am indeed a steward,” he said. “And you are carrying a child out of wedlock.”
    Miss Hastings blushed furiously. “How dare you speak of it?”
    “How dare I not?” Harrison countered. “You surely must realize this is hardly an ideal situation for either of us. I sincerely hope that I might find a way to avoid a marriage, for both our sakes—”
    “I can’t wait to learn what way that might be,” she muttered sarcastically.
    “But if I cannot,” he continued, ignoring her skepticism, “you must keep in mind that you are in rather desperate need of a husband, and it is my duty to keep scandal from the Carey name—”
    “Why?”
    The question astonished him. “Why?” he repeated.
    “Yes, Mr. Tolly, why is it your duty to keep scandal from the Carey name? I cannot see that you would suffer from it.”
    Harrison shifted uneasily at the truth in that.
    “It seems to me that you would wish to marry someone whom you esteem, someone you find compatible in temperament and station.”
    “Naturally that would be my preference, but I think perhaps it is too late for me. And, I daresay, too late for you.”
    “Why is it too late for you?”
    For the second time today, Harrison was forced to say aloud a secret he’d carried for many years. “As it happens, Miss Hastings, the woman who holds that particular allure for me is regrettably unattainable. That is all that needs to be said of my situation. We are speaking of your situation.”
    “Who is she?” Miss Hasting asked curiously.
    “That is neither here nor there.”
    “I say that it is. If we are to be married, I have a right to know.”
    He arched a dubious brow. “Are we to be married, then?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Who is she?” she asked again.
    He smiled as patiently as he could manage, given the uncomfortable direction of the conversation. “Let us call her Lady X.”
    Miss Hastings laughed. “Lady X? Who might that be? Olivia?” She laughed at her jest, and Harrison smiled, too. “Is it Olivia?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
    “That is an absurd suggestion.”
    “Oh, I know who it is!” she said suddenly, her smile brightening. “Lady Martha Higginbottom. Yes, it must be! Olivia said she calls quite often, and she never has much of anything at all to say.”
    Harrison chuckled. He’d played this guessing game at the Cock and Sparrow as his friends teased him about his mysterious Lady X. They had their theories, as well.
    “You must see my point, do you not, Mr. Tolly? If you esteem Lady Martha, you must find a way to marry her. I should think that Lord Higginbottom would be quite pleased to marry her to a steward. She is the third daughter, after all.”
    He smiled wryly.