Gillian let fly another stone.
“—keep—ahh.”
The missile connected solidly with the boy’s nose.
The appendage immediately fountained forth a crimson cascade.
Covering his entire face with his hands, Langley blubbered and sobbed. “You broooooke it,” he wailed. And then, with blood pouring through his fingers, the stocky boy went racing off. All the while screaming for his mother.
Until… there was quiet once more.
Gillian dusted her palms together. “I never thought he’d leave,” she muttered. As if she’d already forgotten the horrible words hurled at her by the gathering of boys, she turned a beaming smile upon Colin. “And here you said there was no such thing as a ‘good’ rock.”
“I didn’t need you to save me, Gillian.”
Lifting the hem of her white skirts, she picked her way daintily along an uneven path of large rocks, playing like the young girl she was and not the heroic defender who’d just sent the ugliest brutes in the village running. “I didn’t save you,” she said conversationally, tossing her arms out to balance herself when she almost tipped off her perch. “If I had saved you, you wouldn’t be sporting that enormous bruise.”
Colin’s fingers flew to that forgotten injury. He winced. His mother would see and ask questions, and he’d have to again lie and insist it had nothing to do with her, when it had everything to do with her.
Hiking her skirts higher, Gillian hopped onto dry ground and skipped over. “Let me see.”
“It is fine,” he insisted, but she already had him by the hand and was dragging him toward the small stream.
She pointed to a nearby boulder. “Sit.”
The power of her birthright brought him swiftly onto his buttocks, rushing to comply. She probed and prodded the swelling lump.
He flinched.
“Those terrible, terrible boys.” Her eyes glinted with anger. “Hurting you as they did.”
His lips twitched in his first smile of the morn. “You are in need of better insults.”
“Langley’s a gibface blunderbuss.” Gillian tore the hem of her skirts. “A regular old bull calf.”
“That is better.” He eyed her movements as she soaked that delicate lace. Her mother was going to have her head for that affront to her dress.
Only, she wasn’t done verbally tearing down Langley. “He’s a corny-faced flapdoodle.”
He strangled on his swallow. “A fl-flap—”
“You know,” she cut him off. “A flapdoodle.” She lifted up her smallest finger. “His naughty bits.”
“I know what a flapdoodle is,” Colin said on a rush. His cheeks fired hot. The question was how did she? He, however, had no intention of wandering down that path of discussion with her.
“And that is why I’m never going to marry. That is how all noblemen are.”
“It’s not how they all are,” he said automatically.
She paused in her probing and gave him a look. “Aren’t they, Colin? Aren’t they?” She placed a slight emphasis on those two words the second time she spoke.
He scrunched up his brow. It was certainly how his father, the randy Duke of Ravenscourt, was. And it was also how her ruthless, miserable father was. And Langley and his father. Yes, mayhap she was correct, after all. “I… I don’t know, Gillian. There has to be a good one among the bunch.”
“I shan’t marry them, Colin,” she said, her voice shaking. “I shan’t do it.”
“Well, you can’t marry all of them. Just one.”
That weak bid at humor fell flat.
She glared at him. “Are you making light again?”
“As it is, you have many, many years before you have to worry about it, Gillian. I’m certain some good nobleman will come along in that time.”
“That is highly doubtful,” she muttered.
And he was forced to agree with her… albeit silently.
“There is only one choice that makes sense.”
“Oh?” He eyed her warily. After all, nothing really made sense where Gillian Farendale was concerned.
“If I do not find a good, honorable man to marry by the time I’m twenty-three, then we shall marry.”
Him? Marry… her? Or, for that matter, marry anyone? “You’re assuming I won’t be married by twenty-three,” he pointed out, hedging.
Gillian pointed her eyes at the tree overhead. “Of course you won’t. You don’t like girls.”
Yes, well, she had him there. Or that had been the case. Recently, he’d begun noticing… things about girls that he didn’t like himself for noticing. Details about their bosoms and other wicked thoughts that reminded him that he was like the dishonorable duke who’d sired him.
He shifted uncomfortably. “Geez, I don’t know, Gillian. There has to be a good one among the bunch.”
“And if there isn’t?” she whispered. “What then?”
What then? She’d still find herself comfortable and secure, which was a good deal more than Colin’s own mother knew.
“I was thinking we might also have a Mariage Grand Cirque.”
That brought Colin back to the moment. “A…what?”
“It is French for,” she said punctuating the air with her two index fingers, as if that would somehow help him translate that foreign language. “A Grand Marriage Circus. Animals don’t have to be there, if you don’t want.” Her eyes lit. “But perhaps they shall? And there’ll be games and archery and—”
“I don’t want a grand-wedding-anything, Gillian,” he said, impatiently cutting her off. “And…And…even if I did…” He wouldn’t. “We don’t have any other real friends to invite.” There was no disputing that.
Gillian appeared stricken, and just as he began feeling badly for hurting her, she brightened. “But perhaps someday we’ll have a very many friends, and—”
“No.” To all of it: to the false idea that there’d be more than he already knew or had for family and friends. To the wedding circus. To the damned wedding.
She sighed. “Oh, very well.”
A cry went up. “Gilliaaaan!”
Oh, bloody hell. Someone was searching for her.
Nay… Colin strained his ears. Not just… anyone.
“Gillian Farendale?”
Gillian’s always brightly colored cheeks faded white. “Oh, dear.”
The father.
It was a dire day indeed if the lazy, portly, and highly inactive marquess went out searching the countryside for Gillian. Even Colin knew that. Only… it would also be a good deal worse for Colin. Springing into movement, Colin gripped her by the shoulders, ringing a gasp from her.
“Colin!” she whispered.
“You have to go,” he said frantically. For her. But especially for him. If he was discovered with the marquess’s daughter… Sweat popped out on his brow.
“But our arrangement, Colin.”
Colin tossed his hands up. “We don’t have an arrangement, Gillian.”
“Giillllian, where are you?” The marquess’s calls grew increasingly closer.