He was accustomed to incinerating others with a censorious gaze.
He’d never reckoned with the power of a pair of brown eyes and a pair of hazel eyes, both aimed at him with a sort of implacable, feminine sympathy.
“It’s one suggestion, Your Grace. Perhaps you’ve another gracious gesture in mind,” Mrs. Hardy said.
Oh, she was good. How petulant it would be if he’d said, How about no gesture?
It was the modifier of “gracious” that rather fenced him in.
“We will also have a word with Miss Wylde, about ways in which she can feel comfortable to be herself without . . .”
“. . . working my last nerve?” he said grimly.
“We’re so sorry that’s how you experience it. Perhaps she’s merely trying to impress you,” Mrs. Durand suggested brightly.
“No doubt,” he muttered. This seemed likely. He knew Miss Wylde wanted his attention. But most females did try to impress him. He wished they would not try. It was like being flogged with little satin ribbons, repeatedly. He supposed there were men who might enjoy and even pay for ribbon-flogging, but he found it confounding and pointless. A bit like shadowboxing.
He sighed. “Very well, Mrs. Hardy. Mrs. Durand. I shall apologize to Miss Wylde and offer her Italian lessons. Do send her in, if you would.”
They stood, and he stood.
“. . . and then I shall congratulate Hardy and Bolt on having the good fortune to marry such diabolical females.”
They departed, wearing smiles, to send Miss Wylde, while he was left to wait for Miss Wylde like a damned suitor.
Presently, she appeared.
“Ah, good morning, Miss Wylde. Thank you for agreeing to meet me here in the reception room.”
“You’re welcome, Your Grace,” she said pleasantly.
He didn’t ask her to sit. Which was all to the good. Mariana didn’t want to spend any more time in his company than absolutely necessary, and she supposed it was a signal that he intended to get this over with quickly.
“I’ve something I’d like to say,” he continued.
“Very well.”
There ensued a pause that grew comical in duration.
“Take your time, Your Grace,” she said gently. “When you’ve never said those particular words aloud before, you might be a little uncertain about their pronunciation. I’ll be happy to assist you if you stumble. I excel at parroting things.”
She could literally see the muscle in his jaw flex when his teeth clamped down.
“I apologize for hurting your feelings.” He said it rather quickly and tersely.
“. . . and embarrassing me,” she prompted generously, as if he were a novice actor and they were learning a script together.
“And I apologize for embarrassing you. It was unkind and unworthy of me. I should not have done it.”
She waited, almost leaning forward.
He raised his brows. “Well?”
“It was very nicely said. It’s just that I can hear the word ‘but . . .’ fair echoing at the end of the sentence. I think you ought to say all you wish to say, Your Grace. Rather the way one ought to like to pull all of the splinter out, rather than leave just that pesky little bit in.”
He studied her and then produced a speculative almost-smile that immediately made her want to retract her suggestion and leave the room with her apology, and at a great clip.
“But . . . I think you hurl flirtation and childish behavior like boiling oil over a castle wall. Who are you without it? Anything? Anyone?”
She felt the scalding, astounding, all-fired nerve of the man! Duke or no duke. The injustice!
And it finally snapped, the tether on her temper.
“Have you ever paused in front of a mirror? You are a bloody castle.” She nearly hissed it, then raised a hand abruptly. “Yes. I know. I oughtn’t say ‘bloody.’ You don’t know how the epithet jar vexes me. It’s diabolically effective given that I haven’t a sou to spare. I cannot afford to be as expressive as I like.”
“Indeed it is a shame you’ve felt so repressed,” he said tersely.
“I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to why I feel obliged to . . . how did you so elegantly put it? Hurl things from a castle rather than roaming about outside of it, free as a . . .” Hell’s teeth. She could not for the life of her think of what might roam the grounds of a castle freely. And then a memory inconveniently sparked and it was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She said, “. . . a sheep.”
He stared at her for a time. Lips pressed together.
“As free as a sheep,” he repeated flatly.
“Yes,” she said firmly, raising her chin, committing to her metaphor. When in doubt and backed into a corner of her own making, embrace bravado for all it was worth: that was her credo.
“So you’re saying I’m not wrong about the hurling boiling oil bit.”
“That’s not what I said at all.”
“But—”
“You’re not completely right, either. In the world of the theater, most decisions are still made by men, and to survive and thrive in it, one must use the language men understand. And that language is flattery and flirtation. But it can be used to both keep people at a distance and to pull them in. When one is not a castle, one must use the tools at one’s disposal. I cannot speak to the childish behavior, as that seems an entirely new inspiration. I’ve a new muse.”
He was silent.
“We’re that simple, are we,” he said neutrally. “Men are.”
“I’m afraid so.” She offered him a tiny, pitying smile. “Well, that, and I like to flirt . . . some of the time.”
“Very well. We have established I am a castle and you are in a fortress surrounded by free-roaming sheep. We have a sense of each other now, I believe.”
“Are you conceding my point, then, regarding castles, boiling oil, and the lot?”
“Miss Wylde, ‘concede’ is perilously close to the word ‘surrender,’ and the entire point of castles is to prevent one from ever needing to do that.”
“Oh, of course, Your Grace. Your reputation for not surrendering was once featured on page one of the London Times. I believe it was the day I appeared on page six.”
“I assume you learned Italian phonetically, then.”
“If you mean by parroting it, why, yes, I did.”
He paused.
“Rather impressive.” He sounded a little surprised.
“You don’t know how much that praise means to me, Your Grace.”
He took a breath. “I wondered if I might also make amends for my unkindness by . . .” he took yet another resolute breath “. . . offering you lessons in Italian. I speak and write it fluently.”
“So I surmised.”
They regarded each other from across the room, their eyes very slightly narrowed.
She’d increasingly felt as though little by little he was dialing her into focus with a spyglass. She imagined all of his thoughts in his unnerving brain, lining up like pieces on a chessboard.
“Why sheep?” he said suddenly.
She gave a little start and was instantly cagey.
There was a little silence.
“I do not want to tell you,” she said.