A Flirtatious Rendezvous: The Gentlemen Next Door #4 - Historical Regency Romance Novellas (3 page)

“Do you like being married? Do you like your husband?” Hanna asked.

“How forward,” Lady Rivington said with a bark of laughter.

“She really has no idea of propriety. It’s refreshing,” Lady Landale said. “And yes, my dear, I adore being married and adore my husband although I do not adore his travel schedule.”

“I adore not being unmarried,” Lady Rivington said. “And I adore my husband’s willingness to let me alone.”

“But do you adore your husband?” Hanna prodded.

Lady Rivington fussed with a piece of sample cloth from the dressmaker. “Many couples have the misfortune of having had chosen for them what they would not have chosen for themselves.”

“Can you still be happy?” Hanna knew Hayden would succeed—knew he would ensure she was engaged soon. She couldn’t picture a life with this mysterious person who was not Hayden. “Can you still be happy and adore marriage even if you aren’t married to your choice of husband?”

Both women went stone silent. Even the dressmaker’s hands stilled at her feet, where she was making marks on a hem.

“Well?” Hanna asked.

“You’ll be able to make your choice,” Lady Landale said. “If none of your proposals suit you—”

“But your
first
choice,” Hanna said, her eyes flitting to Hayden’s study door. “What if I don’t have my first choice? Will second do?”

More silence followed. Hanna felt increasingly hot as she stood under their scrutiny.

Finally Lady Rivington let out a peal of laughter that lit up the room. “You were right. She was worth the carriage ride over here. You’re precious, my dear. Absolutely precious.” She leaned close to give Hanna a tight hug, but Hanna did not miss the points of moisture at the corners of her eyes as she pulled away.

“It seems a shame to waste the time we have with you as captive audience,” Lady Landale said as the seamstress began to drape and measure different materials over her shoulder and around her waist. “Perhaps we should discuss the fine art of conversation.”

“I’m much practiced in conversation,” Hanna assured her.

“Not
real
conversation,” Lady Rivington said.

“Most definitely not,” Lady Landale added.

“Is there such a thing as conversation that isn’t real?” Hayden would agree with such an observation and she wished he was here to give her credit for it.

Lady Rivington’s hand flew to her chest. “Most assuredly!”

“If a husband is a fish, and your dress is a fishing line, why dear, the art of conversation is the deadly hook.”

Hanna gulped at the gleam in Lady Landale’s eyes.

“It’s just...I’ve never been particularly skilled at...well...acquiring new skills.” Hanna thought back to how she fumbled her Latin so well that she’d apparently been insulting and how her mathematics tables always turned into scribbles of Hayden’s profile. It wasn’t that she was stupid, it was that she found it hard to concentrate on anything for very long—except Hayden, of course.

“I suppose you’ll have to find a way to practice before the ball,” Lady Landale said.

“Yes, quite,” Lady Rivington murmured. “Practice makes perfect.” She nudged the dressmaker and pointed to Hanna’s bodice. “Can we do something about that, dear?”

“Now,” Lady Landale rubbed her hands together with a smile. “Let’s begin.”

* * *

Hayden could see Hanna’s shadow peeking beneath the door as she paced outside his study. Even if he couldn’t see the shadow, he would have felt her presence.

Hayden always felt Hanna’s presence. For one, because she was always
present
. Always following him or pestering him. For two, because she had the subtlety of a bright pink ox in a china shop.

He always saw her. Had even learned to pick up her scent—a gardenia perfume he knew her mother had worn that she must have inherited. Sometimes he swore she haunted his dreams just to be particularly difficult.

“Just come in,” he finally said, setting aside his pen, then rubbing his tired eyes. He’d been staring at the Twin Prime proof for so long he was going to see it in his dreams—alongside Hanna.

All those prime numbers in pairs, one by one, marching away down a line. Three and five. Five and seven. Eleven and thirteen. Seventeen and nineteen. Paired primes, together and on and on and the question remained: Could the pairings go on forever? Could mankind trip its way down an infinite number of numbers and find more and more pairs?

Even for someone who found proofs as easy as breathing, a satisfactory proof for this problem eluded him and even better scholars—the few that there were—than he.

He could use a diversion from the proof, and Hanna was always that.

The door slowly crept open.

“Is the hinge broken?”

He bit back a smile at her predictable reaction of flinging the door open and setting her hands on her hips. He braced himself for the retort, but she hesitated and dropped her gaze to the floor, clasped her hands in front of her, and meekly stepped inside.

He straightened as discomfort trickled down his spine. He knew Hanna well, and meekness did not suit her.

“I came to inquire after your day and to ask if I may make you a drink.”

Hayden narrowed his eyes to study her. Despite her lovesickness, she was not one to indulge in such banal conversation or simpering requests. His mother’s fingerprint was all over her behavior, and yet, as often happened when Hanna was around, he could not resist taking a moment to goad her.

“My day has been well, and yes, you may pour me a glass of port.”

Her eyes flew open in surprise, no doubt at his agreeableness. She stumbled to the bar table and shakily poured port from the decanter into a glass.

“I’m glad your day has been well.” She crossed the room to him, holding out the drink with both hands as he sat before her.

He took the glass from the bottom. Her hands were bare. He was struck by curiosity—what would she do if he drew his finger against the naked skin at the back of her hand?

Surely this curiosity was spurred by her unusually deferential manner—no doubt a plan of his mother’s—yet the quest for an answer burned within him. Would she drop the glass? Would there be an outburst?

He wouldn’t do it, of course. He couldn’t. It would be irresponsible to toy with her feelings even in the name of scientific inquiry, but he couldn’t deny that the desire was overwhelming. Her hand was a slip of the finger away. He could easily graze the warmth of her skin.

Hayden felt his breath go shallow, and brought the glass quickly to his lips. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Her inability to meet his eyes irked him. Now he wished he had touched her, just so she would look at him.

“Will that be all?” he said.

“Unless you require more of me.”

Annoyance flared beneath his breastbone. “And if I do?”

Finally, she looked at him, peeked down with her green eyes beneath those lashes. “Wha—what?”

He swallowed again. “What if I require more of you?”

Her lips parted. “Then ask it.”

Damn and blast, but his imagination took a turn. Instead of seeing the skin at the back of her hand he was seeing the skin at the curve of her breast and the flare of her hip. “What do you want?” he barked, shifting to cross his legs and taking another drink as his throat went dry.

She furrowed her brow. “I thought we were determining what you wanted?”

What he wanted was not a topic for polite conversation. “What do you mean by this charade?” he asked, sweeping his hand around the room. “The deference? The accommodation?”

She dropped her clasped hands to her sides and glanced at the door as if questioning escape.

“No, you don’t.” He stood and maneuvered to block her, though it meant standing close to her, close enough to smell the gardenias. “You’re to stay with us for an extended period of time and I will not condone mind games.”

“It’s not a game,” she protested. “Lady Landale and Lady Rivington instructed me in the art of polite conversation, which I’m to exercise at the ball on Sunday. I was practicing.”

Her words turned over in his head as he made sense of them, of her actions. “Let me see if I understand—not only did my mother and her cousin-in-law give you abominable advice on how to compose yourself to catch a husband, they advised you to practice these techniques on me, thereby putting me in the position of helping my competitor beat me at a wager?”

She smiled brightly. “Of course you understand it perfectly.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, exasperated.

Hanna beamed at him, that smile of utter adoration she bestowed on him so often. “Because.” She gave a shrug and he averted his eyes from the rise and fall of her chest under the tight bodice—had it been that tight at breakfast? “You’re a gentleman.”

His thoughts veered into most ungentlemanly territory and he fought the errant images the only way he knew how—with verbal sparring. “I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that neither my mother nor Lady Rivington possesses the tender conversational skills you’re displaying.”

She furrowed her forehead again—she did it often, no doubt because she was often tasked with having to think or consider things more than the average person. “You’re correct.”

“I usually am.”

She turned back to the bar table and fixed another drink. He almost reached out to take it but instead she downed it herself, the groove in her furrowed brow growing deeper. “Why would they advise me to behave in a manner contrary to the way they caught husbands?”

“Lady Rivington’s marriage was arranged by her father-in-law, the duke, for her copious coin. I doubt her manner would have mattered one way or the other.”

She set down her glass and leaned close. “You know, I do believe she’s happy in her marriage, but would have preferred to choose another.” She looked up at him, adoring again.

Hanna was thinking that she would choose him.

He had often considered over the years the academic matter of why this should be, and he rarely had an answer. An infatuation was one thing, but the stubborn devotion she had for him defied any logic. An insoluble proof. Confounding.

“You’ll have many suitors to choose from. Mother showed me the guest lists for our events with an equal number of suitable candidates. Any one will do.”

Just not me.

* * *

Hanna heard them arguing as she pulled on her gloves and made her way down the hall to meet the landau that stood outside.

“She’s an adult, Mother, and perfectly capable of procuring her own ribbons.”

“You’d have me send her into the streets with coin on her person? Should I paint a target on her back? Hang a sign around her neck to invite the ruffians?”

“A disturbing number of society ladies patronize Bond Street without encountering a single ruffian.”

“Hanna is exceptional, as you well know.”

She strained an ear to await his response—for he would have one. Hayden always had one. But instead she heard the slam of a door and the brisk step of Hessian boots as he made his way out of his study and toward her.

Her heart bubbled. He was walking
toward
her. Instead of away from her or behind a closed door.
Toward
her! Granted, it was because his mother made him, but—

“Are you ready?” he asked as he passed.

Hanna nodded and whirled, giddy at the prospect of spending an afternoon shopping with him.

He seemed ready to dash into traffic once they passed through the front door, but he stopped, closed his eyes in what seemed like resignation, and offered his elbow to assist her down the steps.

She accepted it, feeling light as a feather and ready to float away on a breeze.

How could she not daydream? How could she not fantasize?

Of a life where she and Hayden married and took turns around the city and ate dinners together and all the wonderful banal events that made up a marriage. Even if she wanted to imagine another man, she couldn’t.

She tried.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine there was someone else at her elbow. Someone nicer, who gazed at her adoringly, who—

“Oomph.” She tripped, her ankle giving way on the steps.

She opened her eyes on a gasp, just as Hayden’s arms tightened around her waist, just as she gripped his shoulders for support, just as he gathered her close.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Time froze. Her fingers dug into his coat. His arms braced around her body, cocooning her in warmth and safety. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in.

He shook her—funny how it was not as tender as her imaginings. “I asked if you were all right!”

“Oh…yes,” she said on a sigh.

Hayden stood her up. “Did you not see the step?”

“Ah, the step, yes…well, I would have…”

He drew his arms back to his sides with scorn. “You were daydreaming again.”

“I was
imagining
,” she countered, taking his arm, which he allowed without protest.

“Imagine us arriving at Bond Street without broken necks.”

She was about to retort, but he smiled as he said it, and she couldn’t help but smile back as he lifted her into the landau with firm hands around her waist.

“I suppose you know the best place to procure ribbons?” he asked.

She instructed the driver on the shop’s location and turned her gaze back to Hayden. He had fished several crumpled pages from his pocket and had smoothed them out on his lap to study them, his fist tucked under his chin.

“What is it?” she asked, leaning toward him.

“Hmmm? Oh…it’s a theorem I have been working on for ages and was just in the middle of…I feel as though there’s an answer at the tip of my tongue.”

Her eyes crossed and glazed as she stared at the series of numbers and squiggles and scratches that seemed to continue
ad infinitum
down the pages. “Is it something you haven’t been able to solve?” she asked, unable to imagine such a thing.

“It’s a problem that no one has solved,” he said a little defensively. “It’s called the Twin Prime theorem.”