“You don’t have to make small talk with me,” she said. “I don’t like it, and I’m not very good at it.”
They paused in the shade of the portico, beside a sweet-scented bower of roses. Casually Lord St. Vincent leaned a shoulder against a cream-painted column. A lazy smile curved his lips as he looked down at her. “Didn’t Lady Berwick teach you?”
“She tried. But I hate trying to make conversation about weather. Who cares what the temperature is? I want to talk about things like . . . like . . .”
“Yes?” he prompted as she hesitated.
“Darwin. Women’s suffrage. Workhouses, war, why we’re alive, if you believe in séances or spirits, if music has ever made you cry, or what vegetable you hate most . . .” Pandora shrugged and glanced up at him, expecting the familiar frozen expression of a man who was about to run for his life. Instead she found herself caught by his arrested stare, while the silence seemed to wrap around them.
After a moment, Lord St. Vincent said softly, “Carrots.”
Bemused, Pandora tried to gather her wits. “That’s the vegetable you hate most? Do you mean cooked ones?”
“Any kind of carrots.”
“Out of all vegetables?” At his nod, she persisted, “What about carrot cake?”
“No.”
“But it’s cake.”
A smile flickered across his lips. “Still carrots.”
Pandora wanted to argue the superiority of carrots over some truly atrocious vegetable, such as Brussels sprouts, but their conversation was interrupted by a silky masculine voice.
“Ah, here you are. I’ve been sent out to fetch you.”
Pandora shrank back as she saw a tall man approach in a graceful stride. She knew instantly that he must be Lord St. Vincent’s father—the resemblance was striking. His complexion was tanned and lightly time-weathered, with laugh-lines at the outer corners of his blue eyes. He had a full head of tawny-golden hair, handsomely silvered at the sides and temples. Having heard of his reputation as a former libertine, Pandora had expected an aging roué with coarse features and a leer . . . not this rather gorgeous specimen who wore his formidable presence like an elegant suit of clothes.
“My son, what can you be thinking, keeping this enchanting creature out in the heat of midday? And why is she disheveled? Has there been an accident?”
“She was assaulted and knocked to the ground,” Lord St. Vincent began to explain.
“Surely you don’t know her well enough for that yet.”
“By the dog,” Lord St. Vincent clarified acidly. “Shouldn’t you have him trained?”
“Ivo is training him,” came his father’s prompt reply.
Lord St. Vincent cast a pointed glance toward the distance, where the red-headed boy could be seen chasing after the scampering dog. “It would seem the dog is training Ivo.”
The duke grinned and inclined his head to concede the point. His attention returned to Pandora.
Desperately trying to remember her manners, she curtseyed and murmured, “Your Grace.”
The smile lines at his eyes deepened subtly. “You appear to be in need of rescue. Why don’t you come inside with me, away from this riffraff? The duchess is eager to meet you.” As Pandora hesitated, thoroughly intimidated, he assured her, “I’m quite trustworthy. In fact, I’m very nearly an angel. You’ll come to love me in no time.”
“Take heed,” Lord St. Vincent advised Pandora sardonically, fastening the loose sides of his vest. “My father is the pied piper of gullible women.”
“That’s not true,” the duke said. “The non-gullible ones follow me as well.”
Pandora couldn’t help chuckling. She looked up into silvery-blue eyes lit with sparks of humor and playfulness. There was something reassuring about his presence, the sense of a man who truly liked women.
When she and Cassandra were children, they had fantasized about a handsome father who would lavish them with affection and advice, and spoil them just a little, but not too much. A father who might have let them stand on his feet to dance. This man looked very much like the one Pandora had imagined.
She moved forward and took his arm.
“How was your journey, my dear?” the duke asked as he escorted her into the house.
Before Pandora could reply, Lord St. Vincent spoke from behind them. “Lady Pandora doesn’t like small talk, Father. She would prefer to discuss topics such as Darwin, or women’s suffrage.”
“Naturally an intelligent young woman would wish to skip over mundane chitchat,” the duke said, giving Pandora such an approving glance that she fairly glowed. “However,” he continued thoughtfully, “most people need to be guided into a feeling of safety before they dare reveal their opinions to someone they’ve only just met. There’s a beginning to everything, after all. Every opera has its prelude, every sonnet its opening quatrain. Small talk is merely a way of helping a stranger to trust you, by first finding something you can both agree on.”
“No one’s ever explained it that way before,” Pandora said with a touch of wonder. “It actually makes sense. But why must it so often be about weather? Isn’t there something else we all agree on? Runcible spoons—everyone likes those, don’t they? And teatime, and feeding ducks.”
“Blue ink,” the duke added. “And a cat’s purr. And summer storms—although I suppose that brings us back to weather.”
“I wouldn’t mind talking about weather with you, Your Grace,” Pandora said ingenuously.