For a long moment, he held her gaze without speaking, simply letting the impact of words sink in, before adding rapidly, as though he wished to get it over with as quickly as possible, "I won't deny that you're beautiful. No mirror could tell you otherwise. But there are beautiful women for the buying in any brothel in London. Oh yes, and the ballrooms, too, if one has the proper price. It wasn't your appearance that caught me. It was the way you put me down in the gallery at Sibley Court." Vaughn's lips curved in a reminiscent smile. "And the way you tried to bargain with me after."
"Successfully bargained," Mary corrected.
"That," replied Lord Vaughn, "is exactly what I mean. Has anyone ever told you that you haggle divinely? That the simple beauty of your self-interest is enough to bring a man to his knees?"
Mary couldn't in honesty say that anyone had.
Vaughn's eyes were as hard and bright as silver coins. "Those are the reasons I want you. I want you for your cunning mind and your hard heart, for your indomitable spirit and your scheming soul, for they're more honest by far than any of the so-called virtues."
"The truest poetry is the most feigning?" Mary quoted back his own words to him.
"And the most feigning is the most true.
