Not Quite A Lady by Louise Allen

Author:Louise Allen
Language: ron
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

'Lily.' He was on his feet in a small shower of sweetmeats. 'Lily, what on earth are you doing in here?'

'This.' The slap across his face rocked him back on his heels. 'I could think of all kinds of perfectly good reasons why you should not wish to marry me, but I did at least think you would have the courage to tell me if you did not consider me good enough for you, my lord.'

She looked magnificent, her green eyes blazing, her cheeks full of colour, her breast heaving, but Jack was in no mood to admire the effect.

'Lily, for God's sake—'

'Do not blaspheme,' she stormed, putting him squarely in the wrong. 'How you must have laughed up your sleeve when I told you I wanted to marry a lord! Why could you not have told me then, before I made any more of a fool of myself than I already had? Or were you too afraid I would make a dead set at you?'

'I was not using my title in London. I had every hope of remaining undetected. If I found a suitable investor, I would have had to admit who I really was, but do you think I wanted it advertised all around the place that the Earl of Allerton was so poor as to have to seek money in that way?'

'Which way? Asking rich cits and merchants like my family to be investors in your mine? How humiliating for you to even have to speak to that class of person. How lowering to be reduced to propositioning us for our money. How you must have looked down your nose at my trustees. And how high and mighty you are with your tumbledown castle and your out-at-elbow coats, my lord. The likes of Lord Randall would marry me.'

'But then I am not the likes of him, I am glad to say.' He wanted to shake her, kiss her, hold her... Infuriating woman, meddling everywhere. 'Lily, how on earth do you come to be here?'

'I was listening from behind the screen.' She gestured angrily at it. 'Do not try and change the subject. You turned me down because you consider me vulgar and underbred. You might at least have told me the truth and then I would not have had to humiliate myself—'

'You humiliate yourself?' Jack found he was losing his temper and suddenly did not care. He had just put his life on the line for this woman he loved and all she could do was storm at him. 'You make me a patronising offer like Lady Bountiful; you inform me that once your money has turned the situation around I will be able to buy myself a title; you instruct me in how to grovel to a corrupt system to buy favour; you map out my future career in politics for me; and you expect me to accept with gratitude. Well, let me tell you, Lily France, I would never take that from you, not because I am an earl, but because I am a man and I have my pride and I have my honour.

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