“Pussycat?” To her disappointment, he didn’t sound irritated, just wryly amused. “I think of myself more as a . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’ll have to think about it. To find the perfect phrase, you understand.”
“Don’t fret,” she counseled him. “I’m sure I can solve our little problem once we’re married. Wales is likely full of strapping lads, ready to do their lord a favor.”
“We don’t have a problem,” he snapped.
She bit back a smile. “Oh, but we do,” she said. “Your father has promised your hand in marriage to me, and the announcement has already been sent to the Morning Post.”
“Do I look as if I give a damn about that?”
“Your father will.”
“The father I just met five minutes ago, for the first time in twenty-six years?”
“Yes, well,” she said. “Here I am. Your fiancée. Probably the only one you’ll ever be offered, too.”
There must have been something in her tone that gave her away, because he gave another one of those rusty barks of laughter. “I’m not marrying you, and I can tell that you’re in agreement—but damned if I wouldn’t consider it, if things were different.”
“Now, now,” she cooed, curling her hand more tightly around his arm and giving him another smile.
“Oh, give it up,” he said. “You’re not marrying me, any more than I’m marrying you. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Miss Thrynne,” she said. “My father is Cornelius Thrynne, Viscount Sundon.”
“I’m an earl,” he said. “But I suppose you know that, since you apparently made a dead set at my poor father, bewitching him with stories of princely issue. How did you find out his weakness for royal blood?”
“My aunt was aware that he claims Henry VIII as an ancestor,” she said, eyeing his big frame. “I don’t see much resemblance, though; he was certainly shorter and fatter than you are.”
The butler was waiting in the entry as they reached the bottom step. “This is Prufrock,” the earl said. “He knows everything that happens in this castle and farther abroad. Though really, Prufrock, you should have warned me that my father planned to breach the fortress. I would have left.”
“My conclusion precisely, my lord,” the butler said. He bowed to Linnet. “Your maid is in your bedchamber, Miss Thrynne, if you would like to join her.”
From the top of the steps came a clamor of voices as the doctors walked down, led by the duke.
“Hell and damnation,” Marchant said. He turned toward the archway. “You—open the door,” he snarled at a footman, who sprang into action.
Linnet was looking after him with some amusement when he suddenly turned around. “And you,” he said to her. “Come with me.”
She laughed. “You,” she said mockingly, “run away and hide now, why don’t you? I think the big, bad wolf is coming.”
For a moment his face darkened and his eyes narrowed in an almost frightening fashion. But then he held out his hand. “Please.”
She might as well. “All right,” she said. But she didn’t take his hand. They went out the massive door into the sunshine.
“The sun’s still out,” Marchant said, squinting up. “All morning, which is practically a record. It rains most of the time in Wales.”
“Will you take me in the direction of the sea?” She could smell a saucy, salty freshness and faintly hear the sound of waves. She didn’t have her bonnet, which meant she might get freckles, but at the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. Mrs. Hutchins said that freckles were vastly unattractive, but Mrs. Hutchins was far away, in London.
“This way,” the earl said. “You may hold my arm if you wish.” He would never wait for her to retrieve her bonnet, so she’d have to go without it.
“Very courteous of you. You’ll be ready for Almack’s any moment,” she said, curling her fingers around his arm again.
“Almack’s? What’s that?”
“A place where all the best sort go to dance on Wednesday nights,” she said.
“Sounds appalling.”
“It can be tedious,” she said, considering.
He looked sideways at her. “You don’t like dancing?”
“It’s fine,” she said, without much enthusiasm.
“But what do ladies do if they don’t dance? My mother lives for it. She’s furious at me about the lack of dancing in her life at the moment.”
“Why?”
“It’s Seb’s fault. He sent his mother and mine off to Andalusia to make sure nothing happens to them in Paris if Napoleon gets an itch to invade England. And, of course, nothing has happened, so instead the ladies are longing to be back in the ballroom.”
Linnet said nothing. She would love to travel, to see places like Andalusia, or Greece, or even further afield. In fact, she would willingly give up dancing forever for the chance to see the Parthenon.
“So what’s your name?”
“I told you,” she said, frowning. “Miss—”
“Your given name.”
“Linnet,” she said. “But it’s quite inappropriate for you to use it, now that you’ve informed me that you’re not my fiancé.”
“But I haven’t informed the Morning Post yet,” he said. “So I suppose we’re still technically betrothed. Mine is Piers, by the way. Don’t call me Marchant; I loathe the name.”
The path curved and ran alongside a tiny house. “What’s this?” Linnet inquired.
“The guardhouse. It seems that at some point in the castle’s less-than-illustrious past a man was stationed here, the better to manage a smuggling operation,” Piers said.
Linnet opened her mouth to ask more, but they rounded the bend and suddenly, there below them, was the sea. It shone like a great sapphire in the sunlight.
“It’s so beautiful!” Linnet breathed, dropping his arm. “I had no idea.”
“You’ve never seen the sea?”
She shook her head. “My father prefers London all year round. Is that a pool?”
“Yes. It’s carved from the rock. Drains and then fills again with the tide.”
“Do you raise fish in it?”
“I swim in it, of course. If I can tolerate my father’s presence long enough, you can give it a try.” He started down the path. “Not that you’ll have the nerve.”
She narrowed her eyes, staring at his back.
A moment later he turned around. She had folded her arms and was waiting. “You’re a pain in the arse,” he said impatiently.
She waited.
He leaned hard on his cane and let out a ragged groan. “My leg. The pain is excruciating.”
But he walked back to her. The wind coming off the sea whipped his dark hair out of its queue, and it swirled around his head. Linnet laughed, because there was something about him that made her feel . . .
Weak.
Ridiculous. She curled her fingers across his arm. “Ladies don’t swim,” she informed him.
“Yes, they do. I’ve sent quite a few of my patients off to the coast. I generally do with women whose problems stem from their love of pastries. Send them there for female complaints too. As I understand it, they roll out to sea in a carriage, and then their maids tip them into the water.”
She digested that. “I would think one’s clothes would make one sink.”
His eyes were wicked, full of laughter. “Stripped, you fool. The maid takes her mistress’s clothes off and she slips, fish-like, into the water.”
“Oh.”
“I swim naked as well,” he said, “but without a bathing machine.”
“What about privacy?”
They were making their way down the rocky path that led to the pool. He negotiated it with ease, seeming to know precisely where to place his cane.
“I can’t say I really give a damn, but Prufrock kept sending patients down here, so I finally decided to keep my pump-handle to myself. See that sign?” He nodded toward a piece of wood hammered
into the ground, with a red crossbar. “If I swing the crossbar vertical, like that”—he pulled it up—“no one in the household dares to continue.”
She nodded.
He pushed it horizontal again. “If you decide to go swimming, be sure to put up the crossbar.”
Linnet opened her mouth to say Oh, I couldn’t, and then shut it again. Why couldn’t she? She wasn’t a debutante who had to watch herself every moment to make sure she wasn’t labeled improper.
She was a ruined woman. If nothing else, ruined women were presumably allowed to swim.
The very thought made her grin.
“What’s so funny?” Piers asked, irritably.
“The thought of you wiggling around in the water,” she said. Adding, “Lord Marchant,” just to annoy him a little more.
“I don’t wiggle,” he retorted. “I’ll show you, if you like.” They had reached the edge of the pool, so he dropped her arm. “I generally dive in here.” He pointed to a flat rock overlooking the basin of water.
Linnet bent down. The water was deliciously cool, running past her fingers as if it were alive.
“You could go in right now,” Piers said, watching her. “You look a bit sweaty and hot. Your face is all red. It’s probably all that stuffing you have around your waist.”
“It’s very impolite of you to mention the color of my face,” Linnet said, feeling a bit stung. “And I am certainly not going swimming in front of you!”
“Why not? I’m the powder puff, remember? In case you’re wondering whether the sight of your undoubtedly delectable body would make me fall in love with you, the answer is no. As a doctor, I see women’s bodies all the time, and they never spark any interest.”
She straightened up. “I am sorry for that,” she said.
“Why? Because I’m not susceptible to your undoubted charms? I can see that would be a bit of a shock.”
“Naturally that. But also because men . . .” She trailed off, unsure how to phrase it.
“Because men are lusty creatures, and I’m not? Most women are as well.”
“I’m not,” she said cheerfully.
He cocked an eyebrow. “The prince must have been so disappointed.”
“Probably,” she said. “Though I was never quite sure why he was flirting with me. We both knew that we had no future together.”
“He probably liked to laugh,” the earl said. It was the first nice thing he’d said to her.
“I should return to the castle,” Linnet said. “I’m going to sprout freckles.”
He shrugged. “Pigmentation spots can be quite charming. Though I did once treat a patient who’d bought freckle-water at the chemist. It took quite a bit of skin off her right cheek.”
Linnet shuddered and started back up the path.
“Aren’t you waiting for me?” he growled behind her. “I was starting to think that you couldn’t walk without a prop on one side. At least we had that in common: the basis for a beautiful friendship.”
He held out his arm and she took it. “I don’t know why I even suggested swimming,” he said. “A lady would never put a toe into the ocean here. It’s cold.”
“I would,” Linnet stated. She didn’t care how cold it was; she was longing to throw herself into that sapphire sea. “So the household truly obeys you with regard to that sign?”
“They’re terrified of me.”
“Really?”
“You should be as well.”
She gave him a grin. “Maybe you should try harder.”
“Maybe you should marry me,” he said.
She laughed aloud at that one.
Chapter Eight
Piers walked into the drawing room that evening to find that he was the first to appear, which was precisely what he intended. Sébastien tended to cast a nasty eye at his brandy-drinking, and as Piers didn’t care to come to fisticuffs with him, he preferred to drink before his cousin appeared.
Like a drunk, now he thought on it.
He put his glass of brandy on the sideboard. Prufrock opened the door and said, “Miss Thrynne,” and closed it behind her.
His fiancée entered, looking, if possible, more radiant than she had that morning.
She was damned beautiful. Really. His father had outdone himself. First he’d produced Prufrock, and now her. Linnet looked like a princess, all curves and sweetness and creamy skin. Definitely more beautiful than the sun and the moon.
And she had a hell of a bosom. Which is nothing more than a functional mammary gland, he reminded himself.
“Fiancée,” he said, by way of greeting. “Would you like some brandy?”
“Ladies don’t drink brandy,” she replied. She was wearing a white evening gown with little pleats on top and transparent floaty bits down below, embroidered with flowers at the edges. Very ingenious, as it gave a man the idea that he could see her legs if he stared hard enough.
“Nice,” he said, gesturing toward her gown with his cane. “Though I think you would look better in green.”
“My evening gowns are white,” she said. “Would you pour me a glass of champagne?”
“No, but Prufrock can. When he comes back. Why white?”
“Unmarried ladies wear white in the evening.”
“Ah, virgins!” he said, catching on. “So you’re advertising your erotic inexperience on the open market, are you?”
“Precisely,” she said, taking hold of the champagne bottle and wrestling with the cork.
“For God’s sake,” he said. “Let me have that. I didn’t know you were desperate.” He eased out the cork and poured her a glass. “What’s happened to the cushion you were wearing around your waist earlier?”
She was clearly not wearing it. Her body looked like a fine specimen of English womanhood. Slender in all the right bits and plump in all the others.
“I left it off. You were right. It made me hot.”
“My father will be horrified. You’ve barely arrived, and the royal baby lost already. He’s completely obsessed by our family history, you know.”
“He has to know sometime, so what does it matter? I hadn’t realized you were so tenderly concerned about your father’s emotions.”
“Huh.” He took another gulp of brandy.
“Why are you just meeting your father for the first time in years? After all, to have acquired your charming reputation, you must have been living in England for some time.”
It was actually rather unnerving being around someone as beautiful as she was. Her eyes were wide-set and blue. The kind of blue he saw in the ocean just before a storm blew in.
“I managed to earn this reputation at Oxford,” he said. “I practiced in Edinburgh as well, and news of my winning personality apparently spread. People have nothing better to talk about, obviously. So why aren’t your lashes red? I suppose you paint them.”
“Of course I do. And I suppose you never met your father because . . .”
He didn’t respond, just waited for her to speculate.
“Because you lived in France your whole childhood?”
“After age six. I grew up with my cousin, that blond-headed fool you saw misdiagnosing a fever.”
“Is it common for peers to become doctors in France?” she asked. “I must say that it’s quite unusual here.”
He shrugged. “Sébastien and I shared a childhood passion for cutting things open and seeing how they worked. Neither of us could see any reason to change when we grew up, and besides, the Revolution came along and killed off most of the French aristocrats, if you remember.”
He eyed her. “Are you old enough to remember?”
“Of course I am. Were the two of you in any danger?”
“The French medical schools closed in ’92, so we came to England and studied at Oxford instead.”
“So you missed the worst of the uprisings. That was lucky.”
She finished her champagne. Piers watched her throat move as she swallowed. The human body was a fascinating thing. “My
mother lost her husband in ’94, but luckily not her head,” he added.
“Why didn’t you meet your father when you returned to this country?”
“I didn’t want to. I had clear memories of him. He’s a weak fool.”
“So is my father,” she said, rather surprisingly. “But I love him, and he’s my father. And your father, by the way, is no fool. I dined with him every night on the way here, and he has twice the brains of my father.”
“Why don’t you marry him, then?” Piers said it mockingly, before he thought. Then his whole body tensed with sudden revulsion. He’d commit patricide before he’d allow that.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m fairly sure I can find someone to marry who’s within twenty years of my age. And given a choice, I’d rather do so.”
“But you weren’t given a choice when it came to being my wife, were you?”
“Women are rarely given a choice,” she said. “We have very little voice in the matter.”
“If I asked you to marry me, then you’d have the choice.”
She gurgled with laughter. “You don’t want to marry me.”
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“No.”
“There. Don’t you feel empowered? You turned down an earl before supper was even on the table. Surely you can coerce another proposal from one of those poor doctors before bedtime. Bitts has the best background; he’s the second son to a viscount, or something like that.”
She laughed again. It was alarming how much he liked that laugh. She really was a dangerous woman.
The door opened and Prufrock ushered in the three young doctors currently making a nuisance of themselves trying to learn medicine.
“Penders, Kibbles, and Bitts,” Piers said, nodding at each in turn. “Kibbles is the only one with working brains; Bitts is a gentleman, so there weren’t any for him to inherit. And Penders is improving, which is good because there was nowhere to go but up. Gentlemen, this is Miss Thrynne, my fiancée.”
She gave them the patented smile she’d tried out on him. They melted like butter, and Penders actually swayed a little.