Page 19 of The Forbidden Lord
The carriage shuddered forward, and the sound of horse’s hooves clopping over cobblestones filled the air. Jordan relaxed.
“That’s not what’s irritating you, and you know it.” Pollock flicked a minute speck of dust off his gloves. “You merely don’t like having your schedule upset. Everything must go precisely according to plan, or you lose patience.”
“Anyone would lose patience with you,” Jordan snapped.
His friend frowned. “I merely believe that being well dressed is the mark of a good gentleman. Besides, Ilikedressing well. That’s the trouble with you. You don’t know how to relax and enjoy life.”
“Yes, I’m a dull fellow, aren’t I?”
“If the shoe fits …” When Jordan scowled at him, Pollock tugged on his impossibly high cravat, then went on in a mulishtone. “You must admit you can be a blasted machine sometimes. Your life is consumed with running your estates efficiently and running things in Parliament. Everything’s orderly, everything’s part of some plan.”
“That’s not true.” But it was. He did like an orderly life. God knows he’d put up with enough disorder as a child without having to endure it as an adult. So yes, he hated it when things went wrong simply because some fool didn’t behave in a logical or timely manner.
“Then there’s the way you treat your women,” Pollock went on bitterly. “I’ve never seen a man who can take a mistress, then cut her off without a thought because she erred by falling in love with him. And they all fall in love with you, blast you. They don’t realize your charm is merely a means to an end. They think you care. You always make them pant for you, then toss them out into the cold when they want more than sex from the arrangement.”
Now Pollock was hitting a little too close for comfort. “You’re still angry at me about Julia, aren’t you?”
“She’s my friend.”
“Your mistress, you mean. If I hadn’t ‘cut her off without a thought,’ you wouldn’t have the benefit of her company now.”
Pollock glanced away. “Actually, she and I have parted ways.”
That caught Jordan by surprise. “Already?”
“I grew tired of competing with you for her affections.”
Jordan winced. His parting from Julia had been particularly messy. “That isn’t my fault. She and I had a very clear arrangement: mutual satisfaction of each other’s physical needs and no more. I can’t help it if she changed her expectations. I never did.”
For a moment, the air was thick with Pollock’s sullen silence, punctuated only by the rattling of the carriage wheels on stone. Pollock’s palpable resentment irritated Jordan. Ever since Julia,their friendship had been strained, though Jordan didn’t know what he could do about it.Hewasn’t the one suffering from romantic whims.
Pollock sighed. “I don’t understand you. Love isn’t something you turn off and on like a damned spigot. You can’t control it as you control your financial affairs. Haven’t you ever wanted to lose yourself to love?”
“Now that’s a dreadful thought. Relinquish everything for a fickle emotion? Not a chance. What kind of fool abandons reason, good sense, and yes, control, for the dubious pleasure of being in love?”
Only once in his life had he come even close to losing control because of a woman. Strange how he still remembered that night in the carriage with a certain Miss Emily Fairchild. What kind of madness had possessed him? It must have been the full moon, as she’d said. That was the only explanation for why he’d nearly seduced the wrong sort of woman.
He’d paid for it later, too. His stepsister Sara had plagued him relentlessly with questions until he’d deliberately picked a fight with her devil of a husband to take her mind off matchmaking. A pity it hadn’t taken his mind off Emily’s lavender-scented hair and lithe, enticing body. Or her fascinating way of making statements that took him completely by surprise. Women rarely took him by surprise.
At least their encounter had been brief, and the illusion that he’d found the only female in England who could totally bewitch him had finally passed. No doubt if he met Miss Emily Fairchild again during the light of day—and he wouldn’t—he’d find her ordinary and distinctly unbewitching.
“I’ll never understand your cynical view of marriage,” Pollock said, “but obviously St. Clair chose you well for his scheme. Any other man might be tempted to steal a winsome thing like LadySophie after dancing with her. But not you—the lord with the granite heart.”
“Mock me if you will, but I’m well pleased with my granite heart. It doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t fester, and it can’t be wounded.”
“Yes, but it can break if someone hits it with a hammer. One day a woman will come along who shatters it into a million pieces. And I, for one, can’t wait to see it.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time then,” Jordan said, growing bored with this subject. “And it won’t happen tonight. Tonight I’m dancing with Sophie merely to oblige Ian. He thinks it’ll prompt Lord Nesfield to accept his suit and thus get Sophie out of my foul clutches. Ian assured me I’d be done quickly. Good God, I hope so. These affairs are tedious.”
“I don’t mind them. But then I can appreciate a good party. You can’t.”
Pollock’s insistence on making him sound like a cold bastard began to irritate Jordan. “And I’m not looking for a wife to enhance my standing in society. You are.”
Pollock glared at him. “Is that an allusion to my lack of a title or connections? To the fact that my father was in trade? My word, you’re pompous. You can have any woman you want, so you lord it over the rest of us.”
The vehemence in Pollock’s voice startled him. “That’s not true. Any number of merchant’s daughters would happily lead you to the altar.”
“I don’t want a merchant’s daughter. As you so crudely put it, I want someone who can increase my standing in society.”
