A Kiss For Midwinter

“It has nothing to do with what is acceptable and what isn’t. I don’t wear gloves because I’m afraid that they might carry contagion. I’m not about to sheathe myself in a woman who could give me a disease. When I established myself here in Leicester, I determined that I wouldn’t have intercourse at all until I married.” There was a little smile on his face. “I didn’t think it would take quite so long, or I’m not sure I would have made such a hasty vow.”

“So you are looking for a wife? Good, God, Doctor Grantham. Sixteen months ago you reached girl number eleven in Leicester. What woman are you on now, number forty?”

“It…it hasn’t been like that.” He grimaced.

Lydia gave him her best wide-eyed innocent’s look. “I realize the search will be difficult, but surely somewhere in the entirety of Leicester, there must be at least one female who is so undiscriminating that she is willing to accept even you.”

“At least one?” He grinned broadly at her, understanding her teasing for what it was. “My. Praise like that will go straight to my head.”

“Do take it to heart. Even someone like you should be able to find a wife.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Even someone like me appreciates the sentiment.”

“Perhaps if you were a little less circumspect at displaying your income, you could convince number fifty.”

He laughed out loud. “You viper,” he said, but the words had no real heat to them. “It’s those defects in my character again. If you must know, I’d make a devil of a husband—always being woken at half two in the morning to go see someone who’s taken ill, telling my wife the truth no matter how inconvenient or unflattering it might be.” He shook his head and smiled at her. “Caring more about neatness than my personal wellbeing. Making terrible jokes.”

“You’re not all that terrible.”

“Thank you. I shall have that engraved on a plaque and presented to future candidates with your recommendation. The real problem is that I’m unfortunately constant in my affections. I’ve had my eye on one particular woman for more than a year. It wouldn’t be fair to marry anyone else with my attention thus engaged.”

“Oh, too bad,” Lydia said, shaking her head. “And she is not undiscriminating?”

“Alas,” he said, looking straight at her. “She is damnably clever, and I wouldn’t wish her any other way.”

The way he looked at her made her heart thump, her breath catch. For a second, those dark eyes seemed to have no end to them, as if she were looking into a hall of mirrors and seeing reflection upon reflection echoing into infinity.

For just one second, she felt a tug of yearning.

“I think,” Lydia said slowly, “you might have to lower your sights.”

“I’ve tried.” He gave her a rueful grin. “God knows I have. But the view to the heights is so inspiring that every time I convince myself I must move on, I’m charmed anew.”

It was almost impossible to conceive. For all his black humor, Doctor Grantham was attractive. Those velvety black eyes seemed to catch her in and pull her to him. He looked at her with a dangerous, wicked intensity. His lips were full and curled up in a smile. If he hadn’t been so set on another woman, she might have found herself dangerously taken with him.

“What of you?” he said. “What’s your excuse? Yes, yes, I know; you just threw Stevens over last month. But I would have thought that for the eleventh prettiest unmarried woman in all of Leicester, there would be a rush of men to take his place.”

“Do be serious, Doctor Grantham, and think of what you know of me.” Her voice lowered. “I did not become pregnant through immaculate conception. I had sexual intercourse. I am the farthest thing from a virgin.”

He raised his eyebrow at her. “I’m a doctor, Miss Charingford, and even I can’t always tell on close examination whether a woman is a virgin. Besides, the hymen is just a membrano-carneous structure situated at the entrance of the vagina. It is of substantially less physiological relevance to a man in the throes of passion than the vagina itself.”

“Yes, but…” She sputtered. “It’s not about the hymen itself, it’s about—”

“As it is, I’ve had sexual intercourse. And even though it has been too damned long since the last time, I don’t go about trumpeting the fact. You don’t, either. This is an irrelevancy, Miss Charingford.”

She simply sniffed in response to that. “You’re being difficult. I’m fickle, and I have a temper. I not only cried off from my last fiancé, I threw him over by tossing two glasses of wine punch in his face at a dinner party.”

“I wish I had been there to see it. Agreeing to marry Stevens, by the way, doesn’t speak highly of your taste. He was a regular ass.” He shrugged. “But that only confuses me further. Possessing poor taste in men doesn’t hinder a woman in the getting of husbands. It generally helps.”

“My God, you are obtuse.” Lydia shook her head. “For a man as outspoken as you are, you are remarkably obtuse. I’m not so much of a catch.”

“That is how you see yourself?”

“Oh, I forgot. I’m the eleventh prettiest girl in all of Leicester.” Her chin raised a notch. “I suppose with that, I ought to be able to catch at least the twenty-second most desirable man—accounting for my perfidy and my tainted past.”

“I have never said that. Surely, in all of Leicester—once we include the surrounding areas—somewhere there must be some man who is undiscriminating enough to marry you.”

Lydia felt curiously light. “I’m sure there is,” she said, very quietly. “And what I most fear is that I am undiscriminating enough to let him do it.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

“Take Captain Stevens, my former fiancé. Not only did he threaten my best friend, but he was putting the most extraordinary pressure my father. And I knew that when he asked. I agreed to marry him, because I thought if I did, it would stop. I convinced myself that we would do well together—that he cared for me, that he would make a good husband. I knew I didn’t care for him in that way, and that was his greatest recommendation. I thought that made me safe.”

Grantham didn’t say anything to that.

“Listen to what I am saying. I convinced myself that George Stevens was safe when he was leaning on my father.” Lydia threw her hands in the air. “And Tom Paggett—I wasn’t the only girl he interfered with. A few months after he left town, the residents of his new city caught him with a thirteen-year-old child. They couldn’t prove…in any event, he was only thrown in the stocks, but the people were so riled that they threw more than fruit, and he…” Lydia didn’t want to finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to. Grantham likely knew what happened to a man who was hit with stones at close range. “And so yes, Doctor, I’m sure that there is some man who will be sufficiently interested. But what I most fear is that I’ll convince myself that he’s safe. I’ll marry him because it will make my family’s life easier, and tell myself again and again that he’s the best thing for me.” Her jaw clenched. “All the while, he’ll be nothing more than a common criminal. You were right about at least one thing. I am overly cheerful, and no group less deserves my cheer than the men who are interested in…”