“Because you were courting me. Presumably, if things had progressed, I would have been obliged to meet your parents.”
“Would you have wanted to?”
“Naturally. And it needn’t have waited. I would have been happy to meet them from the very first.”
“Is that so?”
“Did I ever give you reason to doubt it?”
Another long pause. And then: “Perhaps you’re right, Miss Appersett. Perhaps I don’t know you at all.”
“No, indeed,” she said with some asperity. “You appear to be laboring under a misapprehension about my character.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m a shallow, self-centered creature, too full of my own importance to see past the end of my nose.”
“I assure you, ma’am, such thoughts never crossed my mind.”
“Then why did you never talk to me?” She searched his face, what little she could see of it in the weak candlelight cast from the carriage lamps. “You’re not ashamed of your origins, are you?”
He snorted. “Hardly. Just because I don’t see fit to bandy my lack of pedigree about in the streets—”
“Confiding in me is a far way from the streets, Mr. Sharpe.”
“Is that what you want from me, Miss Appersett? My confidences?”
“I’d like us to be candid with each other. To make an effort to understand one another.” Her self-assuredness faltered. “Unless you truly don’t wish to renew your addresses to me. In which case—”
“Candor,” he repeated. “Very well.” He folded his arms, his face growing solemn, as if he were contemplating his words with a greater than usual degree of care. “You asked me earlier why it was that I wished to court you. The answer I gave you was incomplete.”
“You said it was because you thought me a beautiful creature.”
“I did. But there are many beautiful ladies in London. I’ve never wished to court any of them before. With you, however, there was something different.”
Sophie waited for him to explain, expecting she knew not what. Was it her intelligence that had appealed to him? Her grace and charm?
“I believe it was your dress that first caught my eye,” he said.
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The gown you were wearing. A printed muslin, if I remember.”
She knew the dress of which he spoke only too well. Her voice turned a trifle defensive. “What about it?”
“It was worn and faded and, like your chip bonnet, very obviously made over to look like new.”
A mortified blush rose hot in her cheeks. “And that’s why you asked leave to court me? Because I looked an absolute shag-rag?”
“You misunderstand me. You didn’t look shabby at all. You were neat as a pin. And you stood there, on the promenade, so poised—so very regal—that you might have been one of the royal party.”
Sophie didn’t know what to say. Surely he must be teasing her? The royal party indeed. “Nonsense,” she scoffed. “Mrs. Carstairs was dressed far better than I.”
“And you shone her down.”
Her face burned. Was he trying to put her out of countenance? “I doubt you even remember what I was wearing. How could you? It was months ago, long before we were courting.”
“I’m the son of a draper, Miss Appersett. And a part owner of three cotton mills. Do you think I wouldn’t recognized faded fabric?”
She bent her head, feeling more disappointed than she’d imagined possible. “That’s the truth of it, then? Why you asked leave to pay your addresses? Because I was so obviously in reduced circumstances?”
He gave a low growl of frustration. “No. No, that wasn’t it at all.”
“Then why?”
“Because it didn’t matter to you. You weren’t cringing with shame. You weren’t putting on airs. You were simply…you. A lady through and through. And one I very much wished to know better.”
Ned waited for her to say something. Anything. But Miss Appersett merely looked at him. She appeared to be nonplussed. As if his words had taken her completely by surprise. “That’s the truth of it, at any rate,” he grumbled. “Make of it what you will.”
The carriage clattered along the cobbled street. They must be fairly close to Miss Appersett’s house in Mayfair by now. It wouldn’t be much longer. He could deposit her in Green Street and correct course to Cheapside. His parents were probably waiting dinner for him. It wasn’t like him to be late. And certainly not by more than a quarter of an hour.