Blunt—confound it all! She was off to purchase food. That had gone right past him in the midst of her barbs and his cropsick state.
He strode after her. He wasn’t going to let her pay for anything when he was perfectly capable of buying what she needed. Let her hold on to her pride and her surprisingly ladylike manners if she must, but she wasn’t going to make him look like some negligent husband who didn’t take care of his own wife.
Besides, he had to counter the impression he’d made last night, that he was some sort of ill-mannered—
I like you, too, you ill-mannered oaf.
A grin tugged at his lips. So for all her grousing and tart remarks, Lisette didn’t find him nearly as “insensitive, arrogant, and presumptuous” as she claimed.
Then something else occurred to him. She’d said, “I like you, too.”
Too? Holy God, what exactly had he said to her while he was in his cups?
He’d better find out and put a quick end to it. The last thing he needed was for a feeling female like Miss Bonnaud to start assuming there was some hope of a respectable connection between them. There wasn’t. There never could be.
He had watched his mother’s heart slowly break as she witnessed Father’s encroaching madness. By the end, she’d barely been capable of caring for herself, much less her son or her husband. Mother had been wholly devoted to Father—and for her trouble, she’d gained naught but pain and heartache.
No wife of his would ever endure that. When he married—if he married—it would be a calculated bargain with a woman who thoroughly understood what was coming. Who agreed to let others care for him in his later years. She’d have to be the sort who didn’t mind giving up a love match in exchange for being a duchess. Because he had no intention of watching the light slowly die in the eyes of some woman who actually loved him.
Some woman he actually loved.
He could never put a woman he loved through that, so there could be no love match for him. And with Lisette, he knew he would want nothing less.
8
SCOWLING, LISETTE HURRIED through the crowded dining cabin. She’d been surprised this morning when Max had made no apologies for his behavior last night, but she’d attributed it to their hurry to leave and his enormous arrogance. When he’d said he’d forgotten, she’d wanted to kick herself for mentioning his grabbing her bosom—she would have preferred that he not remember it.
But of course he did. All it had taken was a few moments’ conversation to have him casting that lazy smile over her body as if recalling every inch of her in her night rail.
Recalling and enjoying. She didn’t want him enjoying that. She didn’t. She didn’t want his eyes scanning her body and his husky voice reminding her that last night she’d let down her defenses. That she’d liked how unreserved he’d been.
Apparently he’d figured out for himself that she’d liked it, the insolent devil. And how dare he make it sound as if she’d been doing something untoward by trying to remove his boots? He’d been the one to manhandle her! She should have left him stumbling about the room instead of trying to help him.
She reached the counter, still in a bad mood. The woman selling refreshments asked, “And what will you be having, dearie?”
Forcing a smile to her face, she asked, “Is there any breakfast left?”
“Aye. Full breakfast—boiled eggs, cold ham, toast, and tea or coffee—is two shillings. Just toast and tea is half a shilling.”
She opened her reticule, observed her meager funds, and sighed. “I’ll take the toast and tea, then.”
“I can buy you the full breakfast if you like,” said a male voice beside her.
It wasn’t Max’s. She kept her gaze on her reticule, well used to such unwanted attentions after all these years out in the world. “Thank you, but I’d rather the toast and tea.”
The man didn’t take the hint. “Now then, miss, I can see you want more.” He took advantage of the crowded room to edge up next to her and lower his voice. “And a pretty girl like you shouldn’t have to do without, eh?”
“And she doesn’t have to, either,” snapped another voice behind the man. “She has a husband who is happy to purchase whatever she wants.”
The duke pushed in between them, staring down his nose at the other fellow. For once, she was rather glad of Max’s lofty manner.
But the other man was surprisingly stubborn. “See here, now, guv’nor, she didn’t say she was married. And she ain’t wearing no ring.”
“That’s because we just eloped.” Max placed a proprietary arm about her waist. “I’m planning on buying the ring when we reach France. You know what they say—the gold is of better quality there. Isn’t that right, my dear?”
It was all she could do not to smile at the absurd idea that French gold was any different than British. “Absolutely.” She smiled at the gentleman. “My husband is very clever about these things.”
The other man paled as he realized that he really had mistaken the situation. “Begging your pardon, sir. Didn’t know she was yours,” he muttered, edging away from them.
“Well, she is,” Max said with a rather convincing tone of possessiveness. “And don’t beg my pardon. Beg hers.”
“Max, it doesn’t matter,” she murmured.
“It does to me.”
“Aye, sir, and you’re right, too.” The man had clearly taken Max’s measure and realized he wouldn’t win any fights with the taller, heftier man. He tugged his hat brim. “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he mumbled. Then he fled.
“Good riddance,” Max growled as he followed the man’s retreat with a murderous stare. “Bloody insolent scoundrel.”
She laughed, oddly gratified by Max’s determination to protect her. “You’re being ridiculous, you know. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Max’s gaze shifted to her, only slightly less angry. “Oh yes he did.”
“All right, I suppose he did,” she conceded. “But he was merely acting the way every man does when he sees what he assumes is an unattached female available for the taking.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “You speak as if you encounter such idiots every day.”
“I do,” she said simply. “But I generally have no trouble rebuffing them. I can take care of myself, you know.”
“The point is, you don’t have to anymore.”
She refrained from reminding him that his tenure as her protector was temporary. The woman serving the food was listening to their conversation with avid interest, and there were other people about. “And I’m glad of that, my dear.”
She turned back to the woman. “Now, about that toast and tea—”
“She’ll have the full breakfast,” Max said.
As the woman nodded and set a plate with the requested items onto a tray, Lisette shot Max a long glance. “Thank you. But what about you?”
“I couldn’t eat anything right now if my life depended on it.”
He did look a bit green about the gills. She would have thought he was seasick if she didn’t know how he’d spent the previous evening. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him, but it was hard not to when he looked so utterly miserable. And yet still handsome, too, in his greatcoat and fustian breeches and boots, with his hair ruffled by the wind and his eyes looking like a storm-tossed sea.
“A little toast won’t hurt you,” she said gently, “and at the very least, you need to drink something.” She turned to the woman. “Toast and tea for His Grace, if you please.”
“His Grace?” the woman squeaked.
Good Lord, what had possessed her to say—
“It’s a sort of joke between us,” Max put in. “My wife finds me a bit . . . imperious.”
When the woman looked confused, Lisette said, “High and mighty. He means that I find him as high and mighty as a duke.”
The woman’s expression cleared. “Right. Men is often that way when they first get married.” She poured the tea and added the cups and a plate of toast t
o the tray. “Takes ’em a while to realize that we women are sturdier than they think. No woman worth her weight is a fainting flower, if you know what I mean.”
“I do indeed,” he said ruefully. “My wife is about as far from being a fainting flower as a woman can get.” He smiled down at Lisette. “Thank God.”
The unexpected compliment made her blush.
He picked up the tray, then nodded Lisette over to a table near a window, away from the rest of the crowd. After they sat down, he sipped his tea, then pushed the cup away. “Damn, that’s vile.”
She sipped her own and made a face. “That’s all you can expect on a packet boat. They’re not going to provide you with the highest quality tea for half a shilling.” She pushed his cup of tea back toward him. “But it’s better than nothing. Bad as the flavor is, it will still settle your stomach and help your headache, I promise. So drink it.”
“Who’s the imperious one now?” he grumbled, but took another sip.
She bit back a smile. It was strange, but she rather liked looking after him. She was probably a sad substitute for his hundreds of servants, but for the moment she was enjoying playing the role of wife. And she didn’t want to examine why too closely.
He was staring at her rather oddly now. She cocked her head. “What?”
“You may have been eager to act this role, but you’re not always very good at it, are you?”
Good Lord, had he read her mind? And what did he mean, she wasn’t good at it? “I’m trying to play your wife,” she said testily, “but I have never been a wife, and I don’t know—”
“I’m talking about your calling me ‘His Grace.’ That was a rather spectacular deviation from the plan.”
She winced. “Oh. Right.” She dug into her breakfast, all too conscious of the way he kept staring at her.
Idly he rubbed his finger around the rim of his cup. “Did you mean what you said at the Golden Cross about wanting to be one of your brother’s men?”
The abrupt change of subject put her on her guard. “Yes. Why?”
“It just doesn’t seem like the sort of life a woman would want.”
“And what would you know about the sort of life a woman wants? You haven’t ever married, probably because you haven’t found a woman who would live up to your impeccable standards.”
“We’re not talking about me,” he said, obviously too clever to be goaded into telling her what she was dying to know—why he hadn’t yet married. “We’re talking about you. So tell me, what is the sort of life a woman wants? What’s the sort of life you want?”
The question brought her up short. She had thought about it a great deal, but no one had ever asked her to articulate it. Dropping her gaze to the cup of tea she was turning around in her hand, she considered what to tell him. “I want to be able to fend for myself, to never have to depend on a man for money.” That was first and foremost. But there was more, too. “I want to see the world.”
As she warmed to her subject, she lifted her gaze to his. “I want to use my brain and not have to pretend I don’t have one, just so I won’t trample on some man’s pride. I want to help Dom make a success of his business so we can show George that we succeeded in spite of him.”
He didn’t laugh or make light of her words. He just kept staring at her. “And you think that the only way you can accomplish all that is by working for Manton as one of his ‘men.’ ”
She tipped up her chin. “Yes.”
“How does he feel about that?”
“He’s not opposed to the idea,” she said evasively. “He just wants me to learn the administrative part of the business first.”
“Ah.”
That one word contained a wealth of meaning. She glared at him. “You think he’s not keen on it, that he’s placating me. Because you think I can’t do it. You think that he’d be foolish to hire me as an investigator.”
“Actually, I think he would be very wise, and that you would do it very well if you put your mind to it. But I suspect you wouldn’t enjoy it as much as you assume.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Thanks to my brother’s disappearance and death, I’ve had vast experience with investigators, and I’ve noticed a few things about them. The good ones are cautious and circumspect. They listen without judgment until they have all the facts.” Leaning close, he steadied his penetrating gaze on her. “Whereas you, my dear, like to speak your mind, and you don’t necessarily want to wait for the facts before doing so.”
“I can be circumspect when the situation warrants it,” she countered.
He arched an eyebrow. “Even when a duke is beating down your door demanding action? Your brother would never have tried to throw me out, admit it. He would have been more cautious with a man who could ruin him with a word.”
She bristled at that. “You insulted me and threatened my servant! Did you expect me just to . . . to stand there and take it?”
“Of course not,” he said, clearly annoyed. “But there was a middle ground.”
“You mean I should have toadied up to you and soothed your male temper?”
“No, I mean—” He muttered a curse under his breath. “My point is that you have strong opinions and feel passionately. And there is no room in the life of an investigator for feeling passionately.”
“That’s not true!” she protested, annoyed that he seemed to have figured her out so easily. When he jerked his head to indicate the other people in the room, she gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. “It’s not. Dom feels passionately.”
“And does he show it?” Max murmured. “When he questions someone, do you know what’s in his mind? Do you even know what his opinions are about a case until the two of you are alone?”
She scowled at him, trying to ignore her memories of how Dom investigated a matter, which was almost exactly as Max described. It didn’t mean she couldn’t do the same thing. “I can hold my feelings close to my chest when I need to. I can.”
“The question is not whether you could, but whether you would. And if you would even enjoy it. Would you really like always being circumspect, always weighing your opinions?” His eyes gleamed at her, taunting her. “Always stifling your feelings on any subject so you could get to the truth of the matter?”
God rot him. What did he know about it? She leaned across the table to hiss, “Just because you’ve spent two days pretending to be my husband doesn’t mean you know me. You don’t understand me, and you never will.” She rose. “Now, I believe I shall go get some fresh air, if you don’t mind. I hope that’s circumspect enough for you.”
Drawing her cloak about her, she started to walk away.
“Flouncing off in a huff merely makes my point, my dear!” he called after her.
She paused to cast him a withering stare. “Go to hell.”
That only made him laugh, the conceited, arrogant lout. She stalked to the door. He thought he knew everything, him and his “vast experience with investigators.” But he’d never been one, had he?
Neither have you, her conscience reminded her.
All right, that was true, but it was beside the point. He couldn’t possibly know how she might behave until she actually served in that capacity. She was perfectly capable of curbing her emotions and listening and all those things.
His voice rang in her ears: The question is not whether you could, but whether you would. And if you would even enjoy it.
Drat him for that. Well, she might have to put up with Lofty Lyons’s cocksure opinions when they were crammed together in a coach or some inn room, but she didn’t have to do it on the packet boat.
For the next few hours she effectively avoided him, attaching herself to a group of ladies who were discussing fashions and beaus and how difficult the salt air and sun were on their complexions. It was the most inane chatter imaginable, but she nodded and smiled and pretended to be enjoying herself.
He made no attempt to invade their little group, which rather surprised he
r. Instead, he went off to a cabin where some of the gentlemen were playing cards. Occasionally he emerged and she could feel him nearby, watching and probably gloating at the erroneous impression she’d given him that he had won their argument, but she didn’t care. She was heartily sick of the duke right now.
Hours later, when the call came that dinner was being served, she was still annoyed enough to consider dining with her new female friends. But she was also practical enough to admit that she couldn’t really afford it. Besides, they abandoned her to join their husbands and brothers and other male companions anyway, which left her no choice.
So when Max came up to offer her his arm on the unsteady deck and ask, “Shall we have dinner, my dear?” she had the good sense to say, “Thank you, yes.”
But she felt awkward, unsure of how to go on as they walked toward the dining cabin. When she and her brothers argued, one of them usually ended it by making a joke. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel comfortable enough with Max to do that.
After a bit, he said, “You were right about the tea. Vile as it was, after the third cup, I began to feel markedly better. I swear I could eat an entire side of beef just now.”
She recognized an olive branch when she saw it. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that. Your stomach would probably rebel. But a little beef and potatoes probably wouldn’t hurt.”
He shot her an amused glance. “That’s a very wifely thing to say.”
“I’m just trying to be convincing in my role.”
“I can think of several more pleasurable ways you could be convincing in your role.” When she eyed him askance, he laughed. “Forgive me, but I can’t get that image of you kneeling in front of me in your nightdress out of my head.”
A mischievous impulse seized her. “What about the image of me on your lap?”
His amusement abruptly faded. “You were on my lap?”
“Oh, you have no idea the things we did last night,” she said lightly. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
“I don’t, damn it!” He eyed her skeptically. “Wait a minute—are you making that up?”
The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires Page 12