Prologue
Twelve years earlier
Cheshire, England
“I hate boys.”
That made two of them.
Boys were miserable little buggers. And the more powerful they were, the meaner they were, too. They delighted in making a person feel bad about oneself. That inexorable truth was the reason that Colin Lockhart now found himself hiding in a copse.
“Are you listening, Colin?” The beleaguered voice came from over by the brook, where Lady Gillian Farendale gathered stones and dropped them into her basket.
He peeked about before speaking. “Yes, I heard you.” The problem was, anyone looking for Colin was likely to hear her, too.
He should have known better than to not answer her. She hated silence with the same burning intensity the sun hated the English sky.
“You didn’t say anything,” Gillian chided. “You know, you are very distant today. It is not at all like you.”
Actually, it was very much like him… with everyone except the chattering girl he called a friend.
Gillian paused in her rock collecting to throw the back of a hand to her forehead in her not-unfamiliar dramatic manner. “I’m never going to get married.”
“Of course you are,” he said under his breath as he once more ducked his head out from behind the enormous tree trunk. Colin searched about for his latest nemeses. “Ouch,” he grunted as his leg crumpled beneath him. He turned a sharp glare over his shoulder at the one responsible for the well-aimed rock to the backside of his knee. “What in the devil was that for?”
“Because you don’t get to say whether or not I’m going to get married.” With a little toss of her blonde curls, Gillian bent and collected another rock from the brook. She held it aloft and eyed it for several moments before adding it to her basket.
“What is with your sudden interest in rocks?” he asked, unable to help the question.
“It’s not so very sudden.” She shrugged. “They’re pretty and useful, and one never knows when one will require a good rock.”
He snorted. “A good rock?” Rocks weren’t going to put food on a table, and they certainly weren’t going to warm a cottage.
“Do you have a problem with my collection?”
That arch tone had him instantly schooling his features. When presented with either an impending battle with Layton Langley or a match against Gillian, Colin would choose the former every day of the week. “Of course not.”
“Well, that is good, because I’m still cross with you for trying to marry me off to any old gentleman.” She plunked another rock into her rapidly increasing collection.
Given he was risking a beating if discovered in his current hiding spot, it really wasn’t prudent to engage in his customary discussions and debates about… anything with Gillian. Not this time. People were looking for him, and Colin wasn’t one to lose at anything, including a confrontation with Cheshire’s biggest bullies. Even with all that, he’d never been able to let it go with her. “I didn’t say ‘any old gentleman.’ He could be a young one.”
She glared at him. “Are you making light?”
“Gillian, you are the daughter of a marquess.” This time as he delivered those words, he was wise enough to keep watch on Gillian, her basket… and his leg.
Her eyes formed tiny little slits. “And?” she prodded, planting her hands on her hips. The basket hung awkwardly at her side.
“And? You aren’t dim, Gillian.” In fact, she was the cleverest person he knew. “Noblemen’s daughters marry other noblemen’s sons. That’s… just the way. Now, if you’d just go?” They were going to find him. With all this noise and all this chattering, discovery was inevitable. There was also the matter of her father, who’d spoken to Colin’s mother about not wanting her bastard son being friendly with his proper daughter. “We can play later.”
Gillian wasn’t deterred. “It doesn’t have to be the way you describe. I don’t have to marry a nobleman.”
Yes, yes, she did. He opted this time, however, to let the matter go.
“Furthermore,” She flung another exaggerated hand over her brow. “No one is going to want to marry me.”
He scrutinized her with a new and even deeper degree of wariness. This was dangerous territory. Colin knew next to nothing about little girls, but he knew this had all the makings of a trap. “You…” Oh, blast. What was he supposed to say here? Colin spoke on a rush. “You don’t know that.” There! He’d—
By the angry little sparkle in her eyes, those had not been the words she’d been in search of.
He fiddled with the frayed collar of his ancient jacket and tried again. “And… why wouldn’t they want to marry you? You’re—”
Gillian arched forward on the balls of her feet. “Yesss?” She stared expectantly at him.
For a moment, he thought she might have been fishing for compliments, because surely she knew why she was the only girl he preferred in the whole damned countryside.
“And you’re clever. You spit farther than anyone I know. You can deliver a nasty blow to a person a stone bigger than you.” And if those weren’t reasons enough that a boy shouldn’t want to marry a girl? Well, then, he didn’t know what else to say.
Gillian sank back on her heels. “My father said I was flighty.”
“Your father doesn’t have a brain between his ears.” That hateful nob, who, when he wasn’t inviting illustrious guests only to raise his prestige, was sending his servants with orders for Colin to stay away from Gillian.
Gillian’s eyes lit, bright and clear, and so something that he squirmed, unnerved by that show of emotion. That was certainly not the kind of relationship he had with Gillian.
“That is what my sister Genevieve is forever saying.”
“Well, she’s right,” he said distractedly, stealing another peek out from behind his hiding space. They weren’t going to quit until they found him. And with Gillian’s usual chattering, it would be only a moment before they discovered them… or, more specifically, Colin. “Gillian, I’ve got company I’m expecting.”
He might as well have stolen her bait for the wounded look she gave him. “You… have new friends?”
No. She was the only one. The only one he’d ever had, in fact. Admitting as much, admitting that he was facing another beating, however, proved one admission he couldn’t make to even his best friend. “Would you mind?” he asked impatiently.
Gillian folded her hands primly. “Not at all.”
Except, she made no move to leave.
“What are you doing?” he blurted.
“You were asking me to greet your new friends, were you not?”
New friends. He silently scoffed. That was one way to describe Langley, MacArthur, and Meadows. “No,” he said bluntly. “I was certainly not.”
Her face crumpled. “Oh.”
And damned if he didn’t feel like he’d just kicked a cat for the wounded glimmer in those eyes that revealed too much. Even so, he needed her gone.
Now.
Gillian sighed. “Very well. I shall leave you to your friends.” She took two steps, swinging her basket as she went, and then wheeled back to face him. “Is it that they’re boys and you are tired of hanging out with a girl after all these years?”