“I should prefer everyone to remain in ignorance of it!” she said hotly. “Am I to understand that Ormskirk took your cousin into his confidence? I must tell you that I find it incredible!”
“No, I apprehend that your friend, Mr Kennet, was the source of my cousin’s information.”
She bit her lip, and was silent for a few moments, a good deal discomfited. When she spoke again, it was with studied lightness. “Well! And if this is so I do not immediately perceive why you should interest yourself in the matter, Mr Ravenscar.”
“I might help you out of your difficulties.”
She suffered from a momentary dread that he was about to make her a dishonourable proposal, and gripped her hands together in her lap. It would not be the first time she had been the recipient of such proposals; she was aware that her position in her aunt’s house laid her open to such attacks, and had never permitted herself to receive them in the tragic manner, rather turning them off with a laugh and a jest, but she found herself desperately hoping that Mr Ravenscar was not going to prove himself to be just like other men. Then she recalled the hard light in his eyes, and felt so sure that whatever his motive might be it was not amorous that she dared to ask: “Why?”
“What would you wish me to reply?” he inquired. “I will endeavour to oblige you, but the truth is that I am no fencer.”
She was by now quite bewildered, and said in as blunt a manner as his own: “I don’t understand you! We met for the first time last night, and I did not suppose that—in short, I fancied that you were much inclined to dislike me, sir! Yet today you tell me that you might help me out of what you call my difficulties!”
“Under certain circumstances, Miss Grantham.”
“Indeed! And what circumstances are these?”
“You must be as well aware of them as I am myself,” he said. “I am perfectly willing to be more explicit, however. I am prepared to recompense you handsomely, ma’am, for whatever disappointment you may suffer from the relinquishment of all pretensions to my cousin’s hand and heart.”