“You think me naive.”
“No, I think the Americans naive. You presume that all men are happier for being permitted to decide their own fate. I have seen differently. The average peasant in this valley is happy enough to have his roof and his bed and his full belly, you are right. But beyond that, if each was permitted to please himself according to his own desires rather than what was best for the community, what would happen? Suppose the blacksmith’s son decides to become a poet. Shall we shoe our horses with sonnets?”
“I should not expect a man born to feudalism to see the merit in another system,” I replied evenly.
“Indeed you should not. I am a feudalist-if there is indeed such a word-because I was born to be, just as the peasant in the field is born to be.”
“And a man may not better himself, ought not to change his station with hard work and education?”
“God forbid!” he said roundly. “Miss Lestrange, it is perfectly well for the Americans to have embraced such ideals. They had a new country to build. Without an aristocracy of birth, they had to establish one of merit. But we Europeans have an older way-a better way-that has served us for two millennia. Would you stage a revolution to make us other than we are?”
“No, but neither would I wish to be what I am told I ought to be, a proper wife and mother,” I said slowly. “It was the notion that I could decide what my own life should be that prompted me to leave Edinburgh, to make my own way in the world upon the strength of my pen.”
He gave me a slow, warm smile. “You claim not to be a bluestocking, and yet I have discussed far weightier subjects with you than I have ever discussed with any other woman. I find I can speak to you as easily as I do a man, a singular thing in my world, Miss Lestrange.”
“Are there no ladies of your acquaintance with whom you may converse about such things? No educated women from your own circle? I understood Parisiennes to be most highly opinionated and articulate.”
“Not the ones who dance at the Paris Opera,” he said, his eyes bright with mischief. “Serious women have always given me dyspepsia, but you are different. Somehow you say the most appalling things and I am intrigued rather than horrified.”
“Do you not cultivate the friendship of thinking women?”
“What need have I for a woman who thinks? Ah, the hedgehog bristles are out again. I have insulted your sex and you will take up cudgels on behalf of your sisters! And yet, you must reflect, I keep low company. The women of my acquaintance are giddy, silly creatures, but not bad ones. They talk only of clothes and jewels, and it is enough to drive a thinking man quite mad, and yet I have come to expect that when I marry, it will be just such a creature, a woman who cares only for the next pleasure.”
“I thought your betrothal was already decided,” I remarked carefully. We had not spoken of Cosmina, I had not dared. But I longed to know the depth of his regard for her, whether he held her in esteem or affection.
He stared at me, his grey eyes wide and guileless. “Do you refer to Cosmina? Ah, schoolgirl gossip, of course. Let me guess, the two of you whispered into your pillows about me after the schoolmistresses doused the lamps. Yes, it is my mother’s fondest wish that I marry Cosmina. But it will not happen,” he said decisively. “There is no power in Heaven or on earth that could move me upon this point.”
“Then you are not to be married,” I said slowly.
“No, Miss Lestrange. I am as free and unattached as you.”
There was something in his voice, some subtle shade of meaning I could not quite interpret.
“But how do you know I am unattached?” I asked, slanting him a mischievous glance. He need not know that I had refused Charles absolutely. Even Charles expected me to capitulate eventually.
He looked suddenly more alert and not at all pleased.
“You have a connection? Ah, I can see by the pretty way you preen yourself that you do. You are a woman of great personal attraction and a remarkable mind. It was stupid of me to assume you were not attached. Tell me about the man. Is he dull and predictable? Of course he is. I expect he wears brown suits and always eats his peas before his mutton and will not take port after dinner because it upsets his digestion,” he finished nastily.
I struggled against the rising mirth. “Do not be so hard upon Charles. He is a good man, and unlike most gentlemen, he would not object to keeping a novelist for a wife.”
“Oh, Charles! Its name is Charles, how utterly predictable,” the count rejoined. “But you do not deny my description of him, so I will take it as accurate. No, do not attempt to defend him. It will only make me more determined to dislike him. Come, Miss Lestrange, what are you thinking? Surely you would not be happy with such a man.”
“I could be as happy with him as you could be with such a wife as you have described. It would be a very long life with nothing to discuss between you but the colour of the new drawing room curtains,” I countered.
He shrugged casually, but his expression was one of pleasure. He was enjoying sparring with me, and for my part, I had seldom felt so exhilarated as I did in that small room with the cosy fire and the storm raging without.
The count parried my last thrust. “Any pleasures a wife does not bring to the marriage can-and perhaps ought to-be found elsewhere. A wife is necessary only to provide an heir.”
“I begin to think that you despise my sex,” I told him.
He sat up straight, his hand to his heart, the heavy silver ring upon his forefinger gleaming in the firelight. Tycho raised his head, then gave a snuff and dropped it to my lap again. “You wound me, Miss Lestrange! Nothing could be further from the truth. I adore women. I have studied them as deeply as old Dr. Frankopan has studied his little pills and potions. And like a true scholar and proper scientist I have even developed a Linnaean taxonomy for my seductions.”
“I tremble to ask.”
“It is quite simple,” he said, warming to his theme. His eyes were alight with enthusiasm, his lips turned upward in amusement. “I have sampled women the world over, from courtesans to countesses, and I can tell you there are only three types of women who matter in a man’s life-those he marries, those he seduces and those he takes. I have only to tailor my behaviour to become whatever the lady in question wants me to be and I am assured of success.”
The air felt heavy within my lungs and something inexplicable began to rush in my blood. The conversation had turned inappropriate, wildly so, and yet I could not,
“And how do you determine which women are which?”
“Birth and breeding, of course. One marries a woman whose blood is impeccable because one needs her only for the creation of an heir. Nothing matters except that her blood is sound and her pedigree is good. If she has beauty and money, all to the better, but I have money enough of my own and beauty can be found elsewhere. Nothing but blood matters in a wife.”
“And those you take?”
“The least diverting of the lot. Serving wenches, maids, village maidens, chorus girls. Any commerce with them is a simple matter of business, an exchange of services for coin. They may want it in the form of a carriage or a new gown, but make no mistake, the courtesan is no different than the innkeeper’s comely daughter who tumbles any traveller in the barn for a piece of copper. Their commodity is pleasure and they are in trade, as surely as if they hung a shingle above the door. They may interest one for a night, perhaps longer if they are clever and well-trained. But in the end, they are tradesmen, and one cannot love a butcher for the way he cleaves the meat, can one?”
He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle and folding his arms behind his head in a posture of ease. He was indeed enjoying himself, and for the first time I wondered if it was at my expense.
“The third class of women, those one seduces, these are by far the most interesting. Unlike the wives and the whores, these cannot be bought. They can only be persuaded, and that is the test of any gentleman’s skill. They are ladies, but barely so. The governess, the poor relation, the novice nun.”
“Surely not!” I interjected, but he held up a hand.
“I am merely quoting from the memoirs of Casanova, not personal experience,” he said seriously. “But make no mistake, when one is not certain of the outcome, victory is much the sweeter. A man values what he has worked for, Miss Lestrange. Consider the hunt. When I ride out, do I aim for the cow chewing placidly in the field? I do not, and yet why not? It would provide good meat for my table. It would be fat and tender and keep me well fed. But I despise it because there is no sport.”
He drew back his legs and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fixing me with the intensity of his
