Very worst work

He sets a blanket down on the glass and practically throws himself onto it, all of the things he had bought with us discarded on the floor by the side of him. "It is a pleasant day! That is nice. I should not like for it to rain before I am given chance to charm you."

"Charm me?" I chuckle a little and take a seat by the side of him, but more carefully than him. "Why should you need to charm me?"

"Well, if there is even the slightest possibility that whilst you are using me for your ruse, you may begin to feel anything at all for me, then I must attempt it!" He pops open the liquid he has bought and begins to pour me a glass. I grimace slightly as he hands it to me. "Oh, you must at least try it. Come on." His hand wraps gently around mine as he holds it onto the cup, guiding it to my lips so I may take a sip. "What think you?"

"I am... pleasantly surprised. What is it?"

"I attend a great many parties, you may be surprised to know that I am invited to any but, well. Lord Granville makes this drink, it is some kind of mix of juice and alcohol and all sorts. I forget what he calls it... anyway, you must attend one of his parties with me. You may find it... enlightening!" He drinks his own, grinning proudly as I say I do not hate it.

"Why? So that you might find a dark corner to sneak me into? You are bad." I roll my eyes slightly, finishing my drink and holding it for another. "So shall you show me those sketches now or not? That is why we are here, after all."

"And here I was, thinking that we were perhaps here for each other's company." He reaches across to the sketchbook and pulls it onto his lap, beginning to flick his fingers through the pages. "Here. This is my best work."

"I do not wish to see your best work! I wish to see your very worst work, the work you wish for no one to ever see, the work you hide in shame. That is how I shall know how good of an artist you truly are!" I do not hesitate to snatch the book from his feeble grip on it, flipping through the pages until I find something I wish to look at. "My, I thought you were not a rake and yet you seem to enjoy drawing ladies very much! Are these from memory or did you have a live model?"

"Imagination more than memory, I do suppose." He leans back so that he is lying on the grass and allows me to do what I wish with the book. His sketches are rough and some of them are not good, I can see the lines where he has gone over and over and over them, or big masses of scribbles where he has decided he no longer likes what he draws. But some of them are wonderful, some of them are splendid. I enjoy looking at them. "Did you like Anthony then? Truly?"

"We are talking of this once more?"

"I suppose I just wondered. He does not deserve a woman as yourself. He is my brother and I should speak kindly of him but... I cannot. Not with how he has spoken to you." He let's out a sigh and pours his mixture straight into his mouth, no longer bothering with the absurdities of a glass. "Did you know that our mother and Lady Danbury wished to set the two of you up for marriage?"

"Really?"

"Yes. They wished to set Daphne and simon up as well as you and Anthony. That is why you were seated at him at dinner, why they made it so you must dance with him... they thought that a fierce lady such as yourself might be able to make him softer. Or at least stand up to him. I suppose they were right in that you were more than able to defend yourself against him but..."

"I realised that he was the most disrespectful and narcissistic man I had ever met?" I smile a little, lying down by the side of him, the sun glaring in my eyes. "No woman could make that man softer or respectable. He... He is rude and abrasive and a horror to be around. I do not know what I was thinking, perhaps I just wished for someone to pay me some form of attention and he was doing."

"If being openly rude to you is what you find attractive then I shall be able to do so, I am sure. You are quite disgusting to look at whilst you are lying down. You have a rather unusually shaped face. I do not like the rings that you wear on your hands. When we kissed last night, I was thinking of what I had for dinner. I think that-" He teases, laughing harder and harder at his own jokes until he can no longer continue. "Honestly! You chose to entertain Anthony's attention! Over my own, it is insulting!"

"I did not think yours were entirely true, I thought you most likely spoke to all ladies as such." I raise an eyebrow, his chortling is infectious, and so I allow myself a giggle. "You told me yourself that you did not wish to marry this year anyway!"

"And Anthony does? You are as much a fool as I am if you truly believed that. Nonetheless, I love that we are making him so jealous. I do love to see him angry, it is one of my most favourite pastimes. One of the only reasons I wake up in the morning, truly. I hope it works as well as you wish it to."