Chapter Fifteen
Seduction was all very well, but first one had to dine. Mordecai ate with only part of his attention on his food—he noticed the ox rumps and the Rhenish cream, but little else. Each bite brought him closer to the end of the meal, to his offer of marriage and Miss Wrotham’s counterproposal—and his reply.
He found himself growing nervous—which would have amused him in other circumstances. He was Mordecai Black. People were nervous of him, not the other way around. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been nervous. Eton, perhaps? And then he did remember: he’d been nervous when he’d asked Mr. Wrotham for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He’d been nervous the first time he’d proposed to Miss Wrotham. And the second time. And the third. Last night he hadn’t been ne
