‘Administer a lesson?’ Ben echoed, truly aghast now. ‘Dam—Heaven forfend! What crack-brained notion have you taken into your head?’
‘Well, I would very much like to shoot him—if I were a man and he had impugned my honour, I’d be able call him out, wouldn’t I? I am an excellent shot, by the way. But since, regrettably, he’d only laugh at a challenge issued by a female, I shall have to take a different path. I intend to seem to go along with his plan, letting him “entice” me to the point of an elopement. I shall insist I dare not leave Dornton Manor with him, but will slip away after dark and meet him instead at some inn. I’ll beg him to hire the horses and a coach for a dash to the border—or wherever it is he plans to carry me off—and wait for me there. Only instead of a silly, eager female running into his arms, he’ll receive a message, reproving him for his dishonourable intentions and expressing the hope that he will not, in future, try to lead some other unfortunate young woman to her ruin.’
‘Don’t do it,’ Ben said flatly.
‘Why not? How does it put me in any more danger than I stand in now? I’ve already walked in the garden with him, alone, so he’d easily be able to return to London and impugn my reputation in the manner you described. No matter how angry he might be, he wouldn’t go as far as to try to make off with me by force—there’s that law against kidnapping you mentioned. Nor would he try to physically assault me—there are statutes against that, too. He may be venal, but I do not think he is stupid.’
Though Ben wasn’t as confident as she seemed about that, to his relief, a better solution came to mind. ‘No, confide in your mother instead. Have her invent some sudden illness and carry you back home. There’d be no insult, no blame. If he were to believe his design had been succeeding and someone who suspected the truth spoiled the plan, he would hold your mother at fault. There’s nothing he could do to injure her.’
‘Maybe. But there’s still the possibility someone could titter behind his back that my mama thought him so deficient in character, she felt compelled to remove her innocent daughter from his presence. He’d still be free to make allegations about my virtue—and get away with it.’
Looking furious, she stamped her foot. ‘When I think of that smug, conceited face, I’d like to plant him a facer! It’s not as if I want to pay him back in a manner as damaging as what he intended for me. But how can I slink away and do...nothing?’
She gazed up at him, her outrage so justifiable, he couldn’t help but sympathise. Even so, it would still be most ill advised for her to try to retaliate. Warrior princess or not, she was still a female living in a society entirely unforgiving of any woman whose behaviour violated its rules. Somehow, he needed to convince her of that.
‘He’s despicable, I agree. But in the case of something as precious as your reputation, discretion would be the better part of valour.’
‘Would you just meekly walk away and do nothing? If he’d tried to impugn your honour and ruin your good name?’
She had him there. ‘It’s not the same,’ he protested. ‘I’m a man and there’s only so much he could—’
‘Why is it, just because I’m female, I’m supposed to let this...this reprobate threaten me and look the other way?’
‘You know why!’ he shot back in exasperation. ‘Don’t engage him in a battle it would be far too easy for him to win and you to lose! Once destroyed, your reputation is gone for ever.’
‘You’ll say I’m naïve, or I haven’t considered the matter rationally, but I assure you, I don’t care if my reputation is ruined. It might even be helpful. I can afford to engage in a battle most females, whose futures do depend upon possessing a spotless character, could not.’
He stared at her, perplexed. Had she really been so traumatised by some previous heartbreak that she was reckless enough to throw away her future? ‘No woman—or man, for that matter—can do without a reputation. What do you possibly hope to achieve without it? Surely, in spite of whatever—unhappy experience you may have had earlier, you can’t be that opposed to eventually marrying.’
‘No, I’m not—or I wasn’t—opposed to marriage.’ She looked up, sighing, and for an instant he caught a glimpse in her eyes of an anguish so great, he felt the shock of its reverberation like a blow to his chest.
Then, the fire seeming to leave her, she said quietly, ‘I suppose I shall have to explain, lest you lapse into superior masculine manner and think me mentally deficient, like all of my sex. Very well.’
With a distracted air, she paced deeper into the woods, motioning him to follow. ‘I’ve always had a passion for sketching,’ she said as they walked, ‘and during my second Season, one swain who became aware of that obsession brought me to see one of the folios of Mr Audubon’s Birds of America, for which his cousin, the Duke of Northumberland, was a subscriber. How transported I was by the marvellous detail, the wonderful colours! I began a conversation about them with the Duke’s secretary, William McCalister, which led to my meeting Will again later and showing him some of my own watercolours. He thought them excellent and that, with the great success of Mr Aubudon’s engravings, some publisher might be interested in bringing out a similar work for British birds, as Mr Bewick’s otherwise very comprehensive guide is illustrated only by black-and-white woodcuts. With my permission, he approached a publisher, who was not only interested, he wrote out a contract on the spot, giving the artist—he had no idea it was a female, of course—until the end of this winter to finish the drawings.’
By this time, they’d reached the clearing. Absently, she took a seat on the log, Ben sitting beside her. ‘Harleton learned of my meetings with Will and reported them to my father, who forbade me to see him again; the son of a younger son of minor gentry wasn’t a fitting companion for an earl’s daughter. Yet, how could I help loving Will? The only person I’d ever met who not only showed an interest in my drawing, but understood how much it means to me and encouraged me to use my talents for something more useful than decorating china plates. When I continued to sneak out to see him, fearing I might make a misalliance that would embarrass the family, my father arranged to have him offered a position with a colonial official in Barbados. A clever man, my father—seeing this as a way to earn the wealth and advancement that would make him “worthy” of me, Will accepted the position. My father locked me in my room until Will’s ship sailed for the Indies, to make sure I could not elope with him. Six months after his arrival, Will contracted some tropic disease, and died.’
Ben had never been in love, fully and completely. But he knew how much his mother had dared in order to be with the man she’d loved and he knew how much the support and friendship of the Hellions had meant to him at Oxford, an outcast with aspirations no one else understood. To have all that wrapped up in one person and lose it... ‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured.
‘No man of good birth would allow his wife to work as an artist, for payment. Nor could I tolerate being a useless society wife. I have money enough that I don’t need to marry to be able to set up an establishment of my own. Except that,’ she added with another sigh, ‘despite being of age, I cannot access the funds from my great-aunt’s trust without my father’s approval. Which he is unlikely to give, an earl’s daughter living on her own being almost as scandalous as her running away to marry a nobody. But if I were ruined, with no hope of marriage, an embarrassment for him to have under his roof, he might wash his hands of me and let me live the life I want. The sooner, the better, since if I do not submit the portfolio by the end of the year, I will likely lose the opportunity to publish altogether. If confronting Denbry risks ruination, I’m ready. And if I’m right and implementing my plan only delivers a smack to the nose of his disreputable intentions, at least I’ll have been able to strike a small blow for a woman’s right to respect. One most females couldn’t risk delivering.’
Ben stared at her, his mind in turmoil. She was of age and entitled to decide on