"It Happened One Night Anthology" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laurens Stephanie, Balogh Mary, D’Alessandro Jacquie, Hern Candice)

Chapter Three

“This is absurd.” Lydia stared at the assortment of notes she’d checked and stacked on the desktop; they’d been working for ten minutes, but she’d barely made a dent in the papers crammed in the top right-hand drawer.

One drawer of the ten it fell to her to search.

“I thought gentlemen returned notes of hand when they were redeemed.”

“Most do.” Standing beside the chair in which she was sitting, Ro was sorting steadily through the papers crammed into the top drawer to the left of the kneehole. “But there are other ways. Some sign across the original note, signifying it’s been paid. Like this.” He showed her one such IOU, with Barham’s signature scrawled across Rigby Landsdowne’s.

“But why does Barham keep the wretched things?”

Ro shrugged. “Some men put deer heads on the wall-think of these as Barham’s trophies. He’s been a deep gambler for a very long time.”

“Clearly.” Lydia poked at three notes she’d lined up on the desk. “This one’s from Lord Shillingborne ten years ago, and this from a Mr. Swanson five years ago, while this last one is from Viscount Swinborne from three months ago.”

Ro humphed, then he paused, staring at the notes in his hands. Then he quickly shuffled through the other papers in the drawer he was ransacking. “Are all your notes from people with names starting with S?”

Lydia glanced at him, then flicked through the notes she’d sorted, then pulled a handful more from the drawer and checked them. “Yes. Everyone is an S.”

She leaned across to look at the notes Ro was shoving back into his drawer. “What were yours?”

“People with names starting with L.”

“Which means…” Suppressed excitement in her voice, Lydia looked along the front of the desk to the first drawer.

Ro shut the one he’d been searching and opened it. He pulled out three notes, looked. “Yes-these are the A’s.”

“Well at least that makes more sense.” Lydia stuffed the notes she’d been sorting back into the open drawer. No need to take care; there was no sense to Barham’s jumble within each drawer. “Here-give me some.”

First Ro checked the second drawer. “Bs. Good. All the A’s are in this one drawer.”

He lifted out a pile of notes from the top drawer and set it on the desk. Lydia pounced on it and started flicking through the papers-of all sizes, shapes, and construction. Some had started life as tailor’s bills; she found one that was an account from a modiste, and wondered what Lord Avinley, a renowned bachelor, had been up to.

They searched steadily, fired by their deductions.

Then Ro slowed, stopped. Lydia glanced up at him; he was frowning at the piles of notes. “What?”

Ro grimaced. “You said Addison hasn’t paid his vowel yet. It won’t be here.”

Lydia looked at the notes spread before her. “But not all of these notes are countersigned as paid.”

“If a gentleman paid Barham somewhere other than here, he’d give the man a card with a few words signifying the amount was paid. Most men would then later destroy the original vowel, but Barham keeps them-here. So these are all redeemed, even if some aren’t countersigned.” Ro started dropping the notes he’d examined back into the drawer. “There are too many, most are old, and most tellingly, Barham wouldn’t keep notes that mean money in such a mess.”

Lydia watched him, then pushed her pile across the desk to be stuffed back into the drawer, too. “So where would he keep vowels not yet redeemed?”

Shutting the drawer, Ro stared at the desk; the surface was remarkably clear and uncluttered, a lamp close to one corner, an inkstand to one side of an embossed leather blotter holder. “They should be here. I’ve seen him bring new vowels in here and come out without them.”

With one fingertip, he poked at the leather blotter holder. It didn’t move. He smiled. “Aha.”

Lydia looked from the blotter holder to him. “Aha what?”

He waved her back.

She scooted the admiral’s chair back and to the side, out of his way as he went down on one knee before the kneehole to peer, then feel along under the desk. There was space for a drawer above the kneehole, but there was no drawer front.

He found a small lever and pulled. A sharp click sounded. “There.” The nearer edge of the leather panel had popped up. Rising to his feet, he reached for it.

Lydia stood to peer around his shoulder as he lifted what was in fact a hinged, rectangular, leather-covered lid; they looked into a box-the hidden drawer. Various writing implements, a penknife, an ornate letter opener, Barham’s seals, a candle stub, and wax were all neatly laid within the box-along with a three-inch stack of vowels.

Ro hesitated; no matter what he thought of Barham, he didn’t like trespassing on the man’s privacy. But…steeling himself, he picked up the vowels, flicked through them, then drew out an envelope.

“That’s Tabitha’s writing,” Lydia said.

Examining it, he nodded. “With Addison’s note of hand on the back.” He looked inside the outer casing and drew out a single, thin, neatly folded sheet, with every visible surface covered in Tabitha’s scrawly script. He handed it to Lydia. “Check that it’s what we’re after.”

He assumed it was, but with Addison the spineless wonder involved, one couldn’t be too sure.

Lydia flicked open the sheet, then stepped back, closer to the bow window, angling the crossed and recrossed page to the light.

Ro slipped the envelope bearing Addison’s IOU back in the pile in the same position, then replaced the stack of vowels in the drawer exactly as he’d found it. Closing the drawer, he drew the admiral’s chair back to its previous position before the desk. He stepped back, scanning, checking; everything was as it had been before they’d started searching.

Lydia was standing before the window utterly engrossed in her sister’s letter. He was turning to her when he heard a heavy, lazy footstep in the corridor outside the library.

Seconds away from the door.

He had only those seconds to react, to protect Lydia while creating some plausible excuse for them being there.

His options were limited.

She caught the next footstep, closer, more definite, and lifted her head, eyes widening, lips parting.

He seized her about the waist. Her eyes widened even more as he lifted and swung her around; sitting on the window seat, he juggled her, pushing her skirts up with his knees as he lowered her.

Lydia smothered a squeak. She ended astride Ro’s hard thighs, her skirts rucked up, her stockinged knees sinking into the thick velvet cushions of the window seat.

Facing him, she clutched Tabitha’s letter-the amazing and detailed account of her sister’s determined dive into intimacy with Addison the spineless wonder-in one hand. Her other hand was on Ro’s shoulder; senses reeling, she clutched, vainly trying to steady her wits, thrown into utter turmoil by the feel of his hands hard and hot about her waist, her skin shielded by only the finest layer of silk.

Before she could gather her whirling wits, he released her waist, reached for her face, speared his long fingers through her hair, dragging locks free as he gripped her head, pulled her to him, and pressed his lips to hers.

Forced hers wide, filled her mouth with his tongue, and kissed her as if he were intent on devouring her.

Distantly-very distantly-she heard the faint click of the door latch…but then sensation rose up, welled through her and swamped her. Filled her mind to the exclusion of all else.

All else but Ro, kissing her deeply, flagrantly demanding, commanding and insisting on a response-on complete and abject surrender.

His hands framed her jaw, her face-each long searing kiss, each evocative caress, sank to her bones and melted them.

She slumped toward him. She’d stopped breathing long ago, but couldn’t spare any wit to wonder at it. All her mind, all her being, was totally focused on him and what he was doing to her.

What he was making her feel.

All he was making her long for.

He broke the kiss to fill his lungs; their lips all but touching, he whispered, “Barham’s at the door. He’s watching us.” He angled his head to trail languidly lazy, erotically tempting kisses along her jaw to her ear. “Pretend to be hungry-starving.”

Pretend? Her skirts were a silk froth across his lap; tucking Tabitha’s letter beneath the folds, she placed that hand on his chest, then slid it slowly and deliberately-savoring every inch-up the hard planes, over his heavy shoulder, up and around until she could splay her fingers, spear her hand through his silky dark hair, grip his head-and kiss him back.

She was as hungry as he could possibly want. She made no attempt to hide it, easing up on her knees, leaning into him to press her kisses ever more avidly on him.

Only to discover she was engaged in a duel with him, a heated, willful exchange, one that escalated dramatically, fed her greedy hunger until she grew ravenous, yet she still couldn’t match his rapacious demands. The more ravenous she grew, the more rapacious he became, the more flagrantly arousing, the more blatantly sexual his actions. The steely need she sensed rising within him in response to her-to her nearness, to her eager kisses-fascinated and lured, and drew her on.

Ever deeper into the spiraling whirlpool of sensations.

Ever more deeply under their spell.

From some way behind her, a fraction to the side, Barham rather pointedly cleared his throat. “Ro, dear boy.”

Barham waited until Ro, unhurriedly and with every evidence of reluctance-including a small but audible sigh-drew back from the kiss. Making absolutely no attempt to sit up or shift Lydia back, heavy-lidded, he remained slumped against the padded back of the window seat, looked at Barham, then arched a languid brow.

He kept Lydia’s face anchored between his palms, stopping her from glancing around, keeping her face hidden from Barham.

Barham’s smile was all masculine understanding. “A pleasure to see you once again within these walls, dear boy. Grafton mentioned you’d arrived.”

“Indeed. It’s proving a delight to be back, old chap.” Ro pitched his voice to a world-weary drawl, his tone that of a man interrupted, distracted from an activity he would much rather be pursuing only by the demands of polite behavior. “Finally having the chance to rejoin you, as you can see, I grasped it. However, not having attended your revels for so long, I wasn’t sure who else might be here. I decided it was wiser to amuse ourselves here, within these more exclusive surrounds, at least until you were up and about.”

Barham smiled, nodded, the genial host. He’d been studying Lydia, what he could see of her. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your new lady.”

Ro smiled at him, the cat with the cream. “Indeed, old son. You haven’t. But I’m sure you won’t mind if we delay the introductions.” He lifted his hips, jigging Lydia. “We’re rather absorbed at the moment.”

Barham’s smile was the definition of lecherous, but Ro knew he wouldn’t object; this, after all, was the principal purpose of his “revels.”

“Oh, indeed. Do continue.” Barham half turned toward the door. “Join us when you’re free-breakfast will be available in the dining room shortly. No doubt you’ll both wish to recoup your energies for the evening’s games.”

Ro let his smile widen, more overtly sexual. “Indubitably. We’ll join you there.”

Barham saluted and walked to the door.

Ro didn’t wait for him to leave, but drew Lydia’s face back to his, covered her lips, and plunged back into her mouth, into the hot, forbidden delight, eager-even desperate-for every last taste for her, before his excuse for kissing her disappeared.

Reaching the door, Barham paused, watching.

Taking one hand from Lydia’s face, Ro spread his palm over her silk-clad side, gripping, then he slid his hand around, over her back, intending to pretend to unravel the knot securing her laces-only to discover that the laces he’d so carefully double-knotted, being of corded silk, slithered and gave at the lightest touch. The knot unraveled, the laces loosened and eased; the back of her gown parted, gaped…he had to follow through and slide his hand beneath the silk, to feel her skin-a hotter silk-against his palm, to caress, to possess…to make it and her his.

Barham went out and shut the door.

Ro told himself to take his hand out of her gown, to break the kiss and sit up-to help her up from her blatantly suggestive position astride his hips, with not even the silk skirts between them to shield the hot, tender skin of her inner thighs from his trousers.

He told himself, and kept repeating the message, increasingly stridently-but his body failed to comply.

His body was all hers, caught, trapped in a web of sexual hunger stronger and more powerful than any he’d previously known.

But this was Lydia.

It took immense effort to force himself to draw back from the kiss, force himself to gasp, his voice gravelly and low, “He’s gone. We can stop.”

Lifting his lids, heavy and weighted, he focused on her face, only inches from his. His hand was still caressing her naked back, which courtesy of those slippery laces was steadily becoming more naked.

Her lids rose a little, just enough for her to stare dazedly at him. She wet her lips; her gaze dropped to his mouth. “I don’t want to stop.”

But they had to. “Lydia-”

“No. Don’t argue.” She leaned in and brushed her lips, swollen and shining, over his. “Just kiss me and show me-I want to know.”

More an order than a plea; Ro struggled against the promptings of his baser self, only too eager to suggest that if she wanted to, then it would only be gentlemanly to oblige.

He knew his baser self all too well and didn’t trust it.

But before he could gather his wits enough to form any cogent argument, she framed his face and kissed him again, this time more deeply, more alluringly-more determinedly sirenlike than before.

Under the heat of that kiss, the deliberate if innocent warmth behind it, the resolution he’d assembled started to melt…he pressed back, shifted, broke the kiss. Tried to sit up, but she was leaning over him, her forearms resting on his chest; to sit up he would have to grip her and set her back, but his hand was spread over her naked back-gripping didn’t help. He dragged in a breath. “We’ve got Tab’s letter-we should leave.”

He inwardly cursed; his voice was hoarse, the words more suggestion than directive.

“Not yet.” She pressed down more firmly across his hips, all soft warmth and sleek, silken heat, the promise of a fiery haven between her thighs blatantly explicit; he had to swallow a groan. He was aroused to the point of pain; when he’d jigged her, he’d clearly made her aware of that, and now she was curious.

He could read that in her face.

Lydia looked down at him, and knew beyond question that here, now, was the time. The only time for her-the only chance she might ever have to know, to experience, what she’d dreamed of for years.

Innocent dreams originally, progressively less so, but now…after reading all Tabitha had written in her letter, all her younger sister had described in minute and glowing detail, she couldn’t live any longer without knowing, without experiencing it all herself.

Here, with Ro, the only man she could imagine being intimate with.

Now, in this room where they knew they would be private, with her in this dress specifically designed for the purpose, designed to arouse and then facilitate the culmination.

Now, when he was momentarily, at least, thinking along similar lines.

And their unusual position gave her some chance of capitalizing on that, of persuading him and overriding his innate honor, his resistance.

“We can leave…in a little while.” Of its own accord, her voice had lowered to a sultry murmur. Rising up just a fraction, she held his gaze, and slowly, deliberately, took advantage of the loosened laces at her back; crossing her arms over her breasts, putting each hand to the opposite shoulder, she slowly, smoothly pushed the small lacy sleeves of the gown down her arms…if she wanted to succeed, drastic actions were necessary. She had to be bold; fortune favored the brave.

His eyes widened, the gray gleaming silver below his long lashes. Beneath her, between her thighs, she felt him react.

Slowly she pushed the sleeves down, then released them and drew her forearms and hands free, let the bodice slump into folds about her waist. She didn’t look down at her breasts, fully exposed to his fixed silvery gaze; instead she watched him, watched the silver in his eyes heat, watched the planes of his face shift, hardening, becoming more sharp-edged, watched his jaw slowly clench.

He drew a long, slow, tight breath.

Before he could speak, she murmured, still sultry and low, “Don’t try to tell me that you don’t like what you see.” She shifted, pressed down just a little more, provocatively brushing the rigid line of his erection with her lower belly, the movement displaying her breasts, moving them closer to his face. She felt like a wanton. The hard bulge pressing up beneath the junction of her thighs hardened even more, felt even more like hot marble, even through the fabric of his trousers.

His eyes fixed on her breasts, he swallowed, then licked his lips. “Lydia…”

Ro couldn’t believe what was happening. Nor could he believe the effort it cost him to lift his eyes from the fabulous ivory mounds presented so blatantly for his delectation. One part of him was frankly amazed he managed it at all. His hand was still trapped against her silken back-held there by the tactile sensation he couldn’t bring himself to lose. The other had fallen from her face as she’d moved; it now gripped her waist, but weakly. His arms, his body, seemed to have lost all strength, all ability to act as he kept trying to.

He gritted his teeth, tried to keep his eyes on hers. “We can’t do this.”

Her big blue eyes opened wide. “Why not?”

His jaw was going to crack. “Because…” He hesitated for only an instant, frantically searching for suitable phrases, but she smiled understandingly and helped.

“Because I’m not the sort of lady you customarily engage in such activities as this with?”

He nodded. “Precisely.” Thank God she’d grasped that critical point. “That is the reason in a nutshell.”

Unfortunately she didn’t react to that reason in the way he’d hoped. Pressing his coat wide, sliding the buttons of his waistcoat free, she pushed the halves aside; setting her hands, palms flat, to his lower chest, to the fine linen of his shirt, she ran them slowly upward, pressing down, patently savoring all she could feel.

Her lids lowered; her eyes gleamed cornflower bright. “Perhaps, in the general way of things, that would be an adequate reason for stopping, for not doing what both of us wish to do.” Her voice remained soft, sirenlike, a whisper of temptation. “But, Ro, I’m a year or so away from being an acknowledged ape leader, and there’s little to no prospect of anything changing that. So…”

Her hands had reached his shoulders. Lifting them to his face, she framed it and leaned close, settling on him, her elbows on his collarbones, resting her glorious breasts, naked, on his shirt-clad chest. Through the fine linen, he felt their warmth, their elemental female bounty, felt everything primitive within him stir.

From a distance of mere inches, she looked into his eyes, searched them. He couldn’t breathe-couldn’t risk even trying to move his hands. If he did, he’d lock his arms around her, lock all that warm and willing female flesh to him-and then he’d be lost. Lost to all reason. Lost to all sane thought.

Lost to her.

He wasn’t sure he already wasn’t.

She held his gaze, and he couldn’t look away, then she quietly stated, “If I’m going to die an old maid, I want this time-at least this one time-for me, with you. Please Ro-don’t make me beg.”

He told himself he was strong-strong enough to withstand this. To withstand even her. The muscle in his jaw shifted, bunched as he tried to find strength enough to say, then do, what he felt he should.

But then she smiled-a gentle, wistful, oh-so-understanding smile-leaned closer still, closing the last inches, and gently, wistfully, kissed him.

“Please, Ro.” She breathed the words over his lips, then drew back just enough to meet his eyes. “For whatever I meant to you all those years ago, when you waltzed with me in the orchard and kissed me…please do this for me here and now. Please…just show me.”

What could he say?

Some inner, wiser part of him inwardly sighed, resignedly, as if this had been inevitable from the start and he should have known.

Should have known that he could never deny her.

That there was no longer any point in doing so, in even trying.

He suddenly saw that not yielding and doing as she wished, giving her all and more than she was asking for, would simply be denying the truth, that truth he’d known for ten long years, and had never been able to escape.

That was the reason he had never wed. Perhaps that was why she, too, had never walked to the altar.

A thought to ponder, but for now, this minute, he had other things to do, other things to which to turn his mind.

“All right.” At his gravelly surrender, a fine frisson of expectation raced through her-like a Thoroughbred waiting for the flag to fall. He finally let his hands, palms burning, grip; he savored the feel of her held poised between his hands, then raised his lips to hers. “As you wish.”

And more.

He kissed her, and let the caress and the heated exchange that grew from it carry that message, make clear his intentions. She shivered, quivered in his arms, but her grasping hands only tightened, fingertips pressing in, trying to grip his muscles, holding him to her. Urging him on.

He needed no urging.

His hands roved her back, learning the texture of her, the supple planes, the indentation of her spine. Then he reached once more for her head, spilling pins and untwisting the knot, letting her long, silky tresses free to fall and slide and writhe over and through his fingers.

Bringing his hands forward, he framed her face, held her still, angling his head as he plundered more deeply, more evocatively, taking as much as he wished, giving her as much as and more than she’d asked for.

Releasing her face, he set his palms to follow the long lines of her throat, down over the swell of her breasts, fingers artfully trailing while he listened to her breath hitch, catch, lungs tightening as he circled her nipples.

He cupped her breasts, took one firm mound in each hand and kneaded, possessed, knowing full well that that wouldn’t be enough, not for her, not now. She gasped through the kiss, then she kissed him-ardent and needy, wanting…

Lowering his hands, he grasped her waist and urged her up, releasing her lips to trail his down her throat, following the line his hands had taken, burning a path to the base of her throat where her pulse galloped and raced, then down over the swell of one swollen, flushed breast to the peak.

He traced a circle about it with his tongue, listened to her frantic breathing, then he opened his mouth, closed it over the tightly furled nubbin, and drew it deep. Suckled as she cried out.

She tried to mute the sound. He drew back enough to growl, “No one can hear. The dining room is at the other end of the house.”

He’d liked the tiny scream, wanted to hear more, set himself assiduously to draw more from her.

Giving more, taking more.

More, far more, than Lydia had expected. More than she’d dreamed.

But no more than she wanted.

One hand fisted in his hair, eyes closed against the sight of him feeding at her breasts, she held him to her and drank in every sensation, let it sink into her parched, deprived senses, felt them swell, burgeon, and flower.

Opening to him, wanting only more. More of all he made her feel.

More of him.

Every tactile sense she possessed felt heightened, alive; her nerves were strung tight, quiveringly taut, twanging at each touch, then waiting, expectation stretching, for the next. Heat flushed beneath her skin, welled, swelled, and washed through her, a seductive fire running down her veins, coalescing low in her belly.

She shifted against him, felt him stiffen, then she felt the silk skirts ruffle and lift; his hand, sliding beneath, found her thigh. From her garter just above her knee he followed the back of her thigh higher, his hot hard palm to her skin, until he found her bottom. He caressed, squeezed gently, explored…distracting her while his other hand also slipped beneath her skirts, long fingers trailing up the inside of her thigh; he reached her curls, stroked, then reached further.

Touched, caressed, then evocatively probed.

She quaked, felt as if she stood at the edge of some precipice waiting to jump, then he suckled more fiercely, his hand shifted between her thighs, and one long finger pressed into her.

What little air she had left in her tight lungs came out in a soft moan, then his finger took up a repetitive rhythm of thrust and retreat that stoked the flames inside her…until they roared.

Until she couldn’t wait any longer.

Releasing his head, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed up. Opening her eyes, she looked down, frantically pushing back her skirts to find the buttons holding the placket of his trousers closed.

With his hands trapped beneath frothy layers of silk skirt and petticoat, he couldn’t retrieve them in time to stop her from slipping the buttons free-but as she did, he swore, gripped her hips and lifted her forward so she straddled him higher across his hips, unbalancing her so she tipped forward and had to put her hands back on his chest to brace herself.

“Ro!” She infused the syllable with all the pent-up pleading in her soul. She knew what she wanted and she wanted it now, wanted no argument-

“Yes, I know.” Ro bit the words out, had no idea if she understood, but there was no reason she should look, and possibly decide to ask questions-such as how could this work?-questions he didn’t have sufficient brain free to deal with. “Just wait a minute…”

She half sobbed with frustration and need, but she was heated and wet, so very ready, and so was he. No point in prolonging the torture.

He positioned the blunt head of his erection against her entrance, raised his hips to nudge a fraction in, as beneath the silk skirts he clamped his hands about her hips, and drew her slowly down.

She gasped, caught her breath on a sob, then followed his direction of her own accord, slowly lowering herself, impaling herself upon him.

He stopped her when he felt the resistance of her maidenhead, eased her up, then guided her back down. The look on her face as, eyes closed, she felt him slide inside her again, stretching her virginal flesh, was one of sheer wonder.

She understood, caught the rhythm; she rose up twice more, then he gripped harder and she plunged down, breaching her maidenhead as she took him fully, as, a cry strangling in her throat, she sank fully down, enclosing him in slick, scalding heat.

A sensation so intense it had him gritting his teeth, muscles locking against the urge to lift her and bring her down hard again, to thrust into her willing and oh-so-tight sheath. But the look on her face, the fleeting tension of pain washed away by sensual delight, was one that struck to his soul.

“Gently,” he murmured, guiding her again.

She followed his lead, carefully at first, then with increasing eagerness, increasing enthusiasm as she realized the pain had faded and only pleasure remained.

Pleasure, it seemed, she was intent on claiming, and equally intent on sharing.

She cracked open her eyes, found his. Breathlessly, imperiously, demanded, “Show me how to do this-how to please you.”

“You are pleasing me-immensely.” But he kept hold of her hips, kept hold of the rhythm, of their joint reins, and set the pace-let it build, escalate, until need broke through and drove them.

On a desperate gasp, she bent forward and found his lips with hers. They kissed deeply, without restraint, tongues twining and probing to the same plunging, insistent rhythm with which she rode him. He thrust upward and met her, gripping her hips and holding her down to penetrate her more deeply…until the dam broke and passion’s fire poured through and seared them.

Filled them, consumed them.

Until there was only heat and that driving, relentless rhythm. Until reality fractured and they flew through the void, tense nerves unraveling, senses spinning…

Until, like a sunburst, ecstasy broke upon them and shattered them.

Leaving them drifting, wracked, sated, buoyed on dreams come true, safe and content in each other’s arms.

He’d been taken advantage of. He’d been accused more than once of taking advantage of ladies-usually by the ladies themselves afterward, and always falsely-but now he, Rogue Gerrard, had been seduced.

He’d been swept off his feet and into an act of intimacy he’d never before engaged in. Had been forced to surrender and be ravished.

Gazing up at the ceiling, Lydia a warm bundle of boneless sated female slumped on his chest, his arms locked around her holding her in place, he couldn’t stop smiling.

He’d always suspected that those ladies had protested too much.

The sky outside, gray, overcast, heavy clouds louring, seemed to his eyes to be rosy and glowing. All he now needed to make his life complete was to find some way to break it to Lydia that she wasn’t destined to die an old maid.

And that, as he’d now accepted, resistance was futile.