“Emily.”
“She’s ill, then.”
“Ill is not the right word. She has a convulsive condition. That is to say, she has convulsions. Seizures. F—” She was talking too much again, and she bit back the even longer explanation that popped into her mind.
“It’s not epilepsy?”
“Some doctors call it epilepsy,” she said cautiously. “But she has seen so many of them. The only thing they can agree on is that they don’t know how to cure her fits.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “What I overheard the other day, that’s the nature of the typical experiment, then? The doctors want to send an electric shock through her?”
“Among so many other things.” Too many treatments to list. Too many for Jane to think about without feeling sick to her stomach. “They’ve tried bloodletting and leeches and potions that make her vomit. Those are the easy ones to talk about. The rest…” If she closed her eyes, she could still smell the poker burning into her sister’s arm. She could still hear her scream. “You don’t want to hear about the rest.”
“Her guardian, I take it, is in favor of experimentation. You are not.”
“Emily is not,” Jane said tightly. “Therefore, I am not.”
She waited for him to argue with her. To tell her what Titus always said—that young girls had guardians so that someone could make them do the things they did not wish to do.
“I can scarcely imagine,” Mr. Marshall finally said. “My sister-in-law, Minnie—she’s the Duchess of Clermont—bother, never mind her title.”
Jane blinked, but he went on, as if he called duchesses by their Christian names every day. Maybe he did.
“In any event,” he said, steering her around a few dormant rose bushes, “Minnie’s best friend is married to a physician. Doctor Grantham and I have had some frank discussions on the state of medicine. I don’t think it is possible to speak with five doctors without hearing of some terrifying practice.”
“Twenty-seven,” Jane said softly. “She has seen twenty-seven doctors, and I’m not counting the ones who haven’t the proper credentials. It’s simple, really. If I marry, I’ll leave her alone in the household. I have money, but she does not. As she is not yet of age, if I gave her money it would simply be held in trust by her guardian. Who, needless to say, would use it to find more doctors. So I must stay in the household, unmarried, so that I might bribe them to leave her in peace.” There was so much more to it than that. She worried about her sister, left alone so much. Emily had so much vitality in her; restricting her movements left her restless. And Emily needed companionship, friends of her own age.
But he nodded. “That much I had gathered. But why is it that you make this particular attempt?” He gestured at the doors of the assembly. “Why not simply say that you don’t plan to marry?”
She sighed. “It’s my uncle. He is a very dutiful man. He allows my presence only because he believes he is doing me a favor—helping me find a husband who will curb my tendencies. But I’m not his ward any longer. If he wanted me out of his household, he could have me out.”
“Your tendencies?”
“I am,” she said swiftly, “stubborn, argumentative, and…and he fears, considering my birth, potentially licentious.” She didn’t look up at him to see how he would take this. She probably shouldn’t have told him that. What he would think…
There was a pause. “Lovely. My favorite kind of woman.”
“You’re very droll.”
“Was I joking?” He held up his hands. “I wasn’t joking.”
“No man wants a woman who argues with him,” she said. “He especially doesn’t want a…licentious woman.”
He laughed. “You,” he said, “have a very odd idea of what men like in a woman. Most men I know prefer a woman who favors a good, long night of…” He trailed off, leaning in.
“Of what?”
“Of argument,” he replied.
“That’s ridiculous.” But she found her lips tugging upward in a smile. “I have proof positive you are wrong on this point. I argue with men all the time, and they absolutely despise me.”
“Ah, see, you’ve got the idea now. Contradict me again, Miss Fairfield, and see how I like it.”
“You don’t.”
“That, my dear, you cannot dispute. We can argue over the general preferences of my sex until the cows come home, but we cannot argue over what I like. I will always win.”
“Why should that stop me?” Jane asked. “I have made an entire career out of losing.”
The smile slipped off his face. He took a deep breath and regarded her. “Yes, as to that. We have established why you do not wish to marry. But there are a great many easier ways that a woman can stay unmarried. What made you choose this one?”
She’d not expected the question. Even her own sister had never asked her why she’d chosen this particular route. And that brought back memories—memories that still itched under her skin, if she let them.
“It suits me,” she finally said.
“I don’t think it does.”
“You cannot argue over what I like,” Jane retorted. “I will always win.”
“Miss Fairfield.” He did not seem to be saying her name as a prelude to anything, but simply to be speaking it for the pleasure of the syllables. He shook his head slowly as he did, and then put his hand over hers.
Jane looked around. Nobody was looking at them, and even if they did, they’d see two people standing by a stone wall. He’d touched her so casually that apparently even he hadn’t noticed. But she had. Oh, she definitely had. She drew in a shocked breath.
“Miss Fairfield,” he repeated, “tell me that you are perfectly happy with your choice. That you don’t mind being laughed at every time your back is turned. Tell me that you are not starved for rational conversation. Convince me that this role that you are playing suits you, and I’ll happily concede the point.”
“I…” Yes, she could make an argument, she supposed. Something about how she was better off without the friendship of everyone who was cattish enough to mock her.
She could make that argument, but she couldn’t even convince herself.
Instead she held perfectly still, absorbing the warmth of his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice what he’d done and draw away. “I can’t claim that it makes me happy. But I am good at this. Mucking up conversations. Not knowing any of the rules. Doing things that I ought not do, saying things that I am not supposed to say.”