Her eyes widened as he drew his arm back and… “Oomph.” This snowball connected squarely with her nose. She dashed her hand over the cold moisture that dripped down her cheeks and into her mouth.
Furious giggles met her efforts.
Patrina narrowed her gaze upon that boulder and stomped toward the two scamps. The giggling ceased. Good, they should be frightened. Unfortunately for the two hellions, Patrina had a good deal of experience in handling mischievous children. She made her way to the end of the path and froze at the edge of the boulder.
“Hullo,” she said. Her tone drew on years’ worth of experience in Mother’s response to the four Tidemore sisters. “I said…” she gasped and dropped to her knees as a little girl with flaxen curls darted from behind the rock and launched a snowball at her.
The missile sailed ineffectually past Patrina’s shoulder. Of all the… “Has no one taught you manners?” she snapped. She rose to her feet and shook out her skirts. “You cannot simply go to a park and—” A snowball hit her shoulder.
Oh, this was quite enough!
Patrina bent down, scooped up the moist dusting of snow and made a compact ball, unheeding the frigidity of cool moisture seeping through her kidskin gloves. She waited. And unfortunately for them, she’d become rather adept at waiting.
Bothersome Boy didn’t disappoint. He jumped up. His eyes went wide as Patrina hurled her snowball. The force of the throw knocked his black cap from his head and covered his crop of golden locks in a film of white snow. “Hey!” he cried. “You can’t simply go around throwing things at children.”
Patrina replied by tossing another snowball. “I didn’t throw a thing.” This hit him square in the chest. “I threw a ball of snow.”
His eyes widened. He splayed a hand over his chest as though he’d been hit with the ball of a pistol. Bothersome Boy thrust a finger toward her. “I say, I say…ladies do not throw snowballs. They don’t. My mother didn’t. And she was a lady and—”
Well, when a young woman eloped with a gentleman of dishonorable intentions and Society discovered the truth, one tended to lose their status as lady, amongst respectable peers. Patrina threw another snowball at his shoulder.
He cried out and disappeared behind the enormous rock.
Good, little wretch should learn to not… The little girl, his sister? Miss Minx snuck out and hurled a rather impressive-sized ball at Patrina’s face.
Patrina cursed around a mouthful of snow and set to work making another snowball.
“I beg your pardon!” A deep, angry baritone split the quiet.
She paused mid-way through the production of her ball. She looked up. And swallowed hard.
A gentleman strode toward her. He doffed his hat, exposing the most luxuriant golden locks, unfashionably long, and blindingly bright. He had the look of an avenging angel. Even with the distance between them, she detected the flash of something volatile and charged in his emerald eyes. “You, there!”
Patrina rose unsteadily and glanced around for the fortunate ‘you there’ to have attracted the gentleman’s notice. She jumped when he stopped in front of her.
He glared down his aquiline nose at her. “What manner of lady goes about cursing at children?”
Her eyes flew wide. What was he on about? “I beg your pardon?”
The two little devils scampered out from behind the boulder. They hurried over to the handsome faced, now devil. She snorted. Angel, indeed!
“Do you have nothing to say?” he barked.
Miss Minx tugged at the gentleman’s cloak and looked up at him through wide, tear-filled blue eyes. “Sh-she h-hit us with s-snow, Papa.”
“Did she, Charlotte?” Thunderous fury underscored the menacing gentleman’s question.
Patrina directed her gaze to the white-clouded skies above. Their father. Of course, with his golden locks and like green eyes, the man bore a striking resemblance to the two little devils. “Of all the nonsense,” she muttered under her breath.
He narrowed his eyes on her. “What was that?” he said on a silken whisper. Odd that a tone could be cold and soft all at once. She supposed if she’d not braved the scandal with Albert Marshville and the subsequent public demise of her good name, then she would wager that emerald-eyed stare might make her uneasy. But she’d grown immune to disapproving stares. Any stares, really. The angry kinds. The mocking kinds. The disappointed kinds.
It would take a good deal more than this fiend to rankle her. She tossed her head back, damning the foot or so difference between his towering figure and her mere five feet three inches. “I gather these wretches are your children, sir?”
“My lord,” he said.
She blinked at him. What was he on about?
“I am the Marquess of Beaufort and these are my children.”
Oh, the insufferable, pompous lout. Did he think she’d be impressed or cowed by a title of marquess? “Well, then, my lord, your children are reprehensible mischief makers in need of lessons on proper deportment.” Her sisters and brother would surely have laughed at any of the Tidemore siblings instructing another family on matters of proper deportment.
Bothersome Boy rushed to his father’s side. “Did you hear what she s-said about us, P-papa?” he said in a wounded voice, tears in his eyes.
She snorted. No doubt the little fiend had spent the whole of his years on this earth perfecting those very tears.
The marquess glared at her and then rested a large, gloved hand upon the boy’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Daniel. Mustn’t let yourself be hurt by cruel people, remember that.”
Laughter bubbled past her lips. “Of all the nonsense.”
The marquess’ terse response came on the edge of a steely whisper. “What was that?”
Bothersome Boy, Daniel, it would seem, peeked from the side of his father’s leg, a gloating expression in his eyes. He stuck out his tongue.
She narrowed her gaze, and then shifted her attention back to the ineffectual father. “What I said, my lord, is ‘of all the nonsense’. You clearly have very little idea of what reprehensible children you have here.” She ticked off a list on her fingers. “Throwing snowballs. Taunting. Hitting a lady with snowballs. Lying,” she directed that pointed statement at the two children. They’d apparently been far too long without a proper scolding for they took that recrimination with unblinking calm.
“But then,” the marquess said softly, “a proper young lady shouldn’t be out alone in the park, unchaperoned, on a stormy day. Throwing snowballs at those…?” He quirked a golden eyebrow. “What did you call them? Rep—”
“Reprehensible children,” she supplied for him. “I called them reprehensible children,” she said, filled with a perverse pleasure at needling the arrogant lout. And yes, he had her there. Proper young ladies shouldn’t be out alone as she presently was. However, she’d not been a proper young lady in many months now.
“Are you finished?” he snapped.
She chewed her lower lip and then nodded. “Yes, I believe I am.”
He jerked his chin, and without a word turned on his heel. His two little hellions trotted after him.
She stitched her brows into a line. “No, that isn’t all,” she called out before she thought better of it. Her sharp voice carried through the winter still of the quiet air around them.