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merely omitted mentioning a pertinent fact. Once she was his and he was sure of her, then he could tell her the truth—once her feminine heart was committed, she wouldn’t care why they were marrying, only that they were.
    None of that, of course, required a public courtship. Whether he seduced her now or after they wed made no difference to his plan. However, while he felt no qualms over her imagining that he was marrying her for her money—given it was her idea in the first place—he had an absolute aversion to society imagining any such thing. That, in his lexicon, would be unacceptable conduct, conduct unbefitting a gentleman. Not only would the image be a lie, letting society think he was marrying her purely for monetary reasons, without any real affection, wouldn’t reflect well on her. Especially coming hard on the heels of Martin and Amanda’s love-inspired union.
    In his view, she deserved better.
    With a haughty toss of her curls, she moved on. He stepped out, prowling in her wake, his longer strides eating the distance between them despite his languorous pace.
    She deserved to be wooed, resistant and suspicious though she was, impatient and dismissive. And it would give him the opportunity he needed to tie her to him with something other than prosaic pragmatism. With something thatwould render his reason for wedding her inconsequential.
    By declining to examine what that reason was, he hoped it would remain in its nascent state, ephemeral—less demanding. Why such a compulsion had surfaced now, why it was so focused on her, the sudden realization that she was the only wife he wanted all contributed to his underlying unease; despite the craving she and that reason evoked in him, she’d shown no sign of any reciprocal emotion.
    Yet.
    Reaching her side, he took her hand. Met her gaze as she faced him. “I’ll need to meet with Emily and Anne soon—it’ll be better if they don’t see us together.”
    She arched a brow. “Plotting?”
    â€œIndeed.” He held her gaze, then bowed. “I’ll see you at the Mountfords’ tonight.”
    She hesitated, then nodded. “Until tonight.”
    He pressed her fingers, then released them. She turned and looked at the glass case.
    Two heartbeats later, he left her.
    There was one person who had to know the truth. On returning home, Luc glanced at the clock, then repaired to his study and busied himself with various financial matters awaiting his attention. When the clocks chimed four, he set aside his papers and climbed the stairs to his mother’s sitting room.
    She would have been resting, but she always rose at four o’clock. Reaching the upstairs gallery, he glimpsed Mrs. Higgs in the front hall below, heading for the stairs, a well-stocked tray in her hands. At his mother’s sitting room door, he tapped; hearing her voice bid him enter, he opened the door.
    She’d been reclining on the chaise, but was now sitting up, rearranging cushions at her back.
    A still beautiful woman, although her dramatic coloring—black hair, fair complexion, dark blue eyes the same as his—had faded, there remained some indefinable quality in her smile, in her fine eyes, that reached out to men and made them eager to serve her. A quality of which she was notoblivious but had not, as far as he knew, employed since his father’s death. He’d never understood his parents’ union, for his mother was intelligent and astute, yet she’d been unswervingly faithful to a shiftless wastrel, not just during his life, but to his memory, too.
    She saw him and raised both brows. He smiled, entered, then held the door for Mrs. Higgs, who inclined her head and swept past to set her tray on the low table before the chaise.
    â€œI’ve brought two cups, as it happens, and there’s plenty of cakes—will you be wanting anything more, m’lord?”
    Luc surveyed the small feast Higgs was