She glanced up at him, studying him beneath the veil of thick auburn lashes. “Would you care for tea?”

“No, thank you.”

She set her quill aside and waved the butler away. “The trait of punctuality simply tells me that you value time. It suggests you will value mine as well, which I appreciate.”

“What else do you value, Miss Martin?”

“I fail to see how that signifies.”

Jasper smiled. “If I am to be a lovelorn swain or even simply a fortune hunter who has set his cap for you, I am expected to know things about you.”

“I see.” A slight wrinkle marred the space between her brows, then she said, “I value my privacy, solitude, the books in my library, my horse, and my money.”

He watched the way her fingertips tapped lightly atop the ledger in front of her. “You keep your own accounts?”

“As my father did before me.”

“Why have you not wed?”

Eliza sat back and crossed her arms. “Are you married, Mr. Bond?”

“Jasper,” he corrected, wanting to hear his given name spoken in her soft, yet steely voice. “And no, I’m not married.”

“Then I ask the same question of you. Why have you not wed?”

“The manner in which I live my life doesn’t lend itself to matrimony. I keep odd hours and odder company.”

“Hmm…Well, I have not wed because I’ve yet to find an individual whose company is worth the expense.” She lifted one shoulder in an offhand shrug. “Frankly, marriage for me is an extremely expensive proposition. In addition to the loss of control over my own funds, I’d be agreeing to spend an inordinate amount of time with another person. It makes me odd, I know-or perhaps it just makes me a Tremaine-but I find socializing with others is more exhausting than refreshing. I have to consider everything I want to say, and then filter it through my mind before I speak so what emerges from my mouth doesn’t offend with its bluntness.”

And there it was, the key to wooing her into bed: encourage her to be herself. Not a problem for him at all, since he enjoyed her unpolished pronouncements and reasoned judgments. He looked forward to the challenge of unveiling the woman beneath the brain.