When Beauty Tamed the Beast

“Do you think my mind has changed?” Piers didn’t look indifferent now. He looked utterly furious.

Linnet cast a quick look at Gavan, but he had crawled into the corner of a stall, trapped Rufus on his lap, and was whispering into one of the dog’s hairy ears. He wasn’t paying attention.

“I know nothing has changed,” the duke said, his voice cracking. “But I can’t help saying I’m sorry. I looked at you and your mother last night and I knew that I once had everything, everything that life could possibly give me that meant anything, and I threw it away. I threw away my marriage. Worse, I injured you—”

“Shut up,” Piers said, his voice as cold as the ocean, colder, even. “I told you that I can’t give you the pardon you are looking for, and even if I could, it wouldn’t magically make your past go away.”

The duke swiped away another tear.

“You didn’t throw us away. You made a legitimate, if misguided, decision that you preferred the euphoria of drugs to the tedium of family life. Who’s to say that you weren’t right, after all? I’ve never been tempted to sleep with the same woman every night myself. Let alone reproduce myself in a leaky, noisy miniature human.”

“Stop it,” Linnet said, rising to her feet.

Piers’s eyes narrowed. “Oh look, now we’re going to have an injection of warm female compassion.”

“Who’s being compassionate? What I see is you making a fool of yourself, and since I grew up with that behavior, it doesn’t inspire compassion. Repetition leads to contempt, not compassion.”

“If your father was a weeper, all I can say is that I know the feeling.”

“You’re the fool,” Linnet said. “Your father took too much opium. He lost his family. He hurt your feelings.” She paused.

“Boo hoo,” Piers said.

“That’s just what I was going to say.” She smiled in a way calculated to irritate. “Was it the medical degree that gave you the idea it was all right to keep acting like an angry six-year-old?”

“No, do tell me. How would that work?”

The duke rose as well, swaying a little. “Please, this is all my fault.”

“We agree with you,” Piers said. “No need to keep beating that particular dead horse.”

“Yes, why bother, when your son can have fun doing it for you?” Linnet said.

“Are you always this sarcastic?” Piers actually looked rather startled.

“No. I’m a very nice young lady,” Linnet said. “You bring out the worst in me, however.”

“I’ll leave,” the duke said heavily. “That is, we’ll leave. She wouldn’t even speak to me this morning. I’m—I’ll take you back to London, Miss Thrynne. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner, but my son could never accept a bride whom I suggested.”

“Is that true?” Linnet demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

Piers raised an eyebrow. “What, you’d rather be rejected on your own merits, or should I say demerits?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” she said, turning to the duke. “We’ll stay here until I’m quite sure that I don’t feel the urge to marry a nasty, self-absorbed six-year-old tyrant.”

“Are you talking about me?” Gavan piped up suddenly.

She looked over. “No, you go back to playing with your dog.”

“I’m going to try walking,” Gavan announced. “Rufus will help me.”

“Good idea,” Piers said. “Nurse Matilda won’t keep your bed forever, you know.”

Gavan stood up, wavering a bit, and walked out of the stall. Rufus stayed at his heels. They all watched as he started down the aisle that ran the length of the stables.

“Once up and down, and then he’d better go back to Matilda’s tender ministrations,” Piers said.

“If you’ll excuse me,” the duke said, “I think I’ll return to the house.” He straightened his shoulders and bowed politely, but his eyes were squinty and small.

Linnet waited until he was gone, and then she said, “You must forgive him.”

“Why?” Piers actually sounded half interested.

“It’s not good for either of you.”

“Do you realize that you sound as if you’re hallucinating? We don’t talk like that in Wales. Good for either of you. Wait! I have heard that sort of language before, from a cracked man who belonged to the Family of Love.”

She stared at him, waiting.

“Aren’t you going to ask what the Family is, if only so you can run off and join them?”

“I didn’t realize you needed a response. When Hamlet is giving a monologue, he just goes on and on by himself.”

Piers threw her a disgusted look and turned to go.

She raised her voice. “You must forgive your father because anger is destructive, and it makes you a worse doctor.”

“Actually, it makes me a better doctor. I’m more likely to notice when people are lying to me, and believe me, there’s no one people lie to more than a doctor.”

“Wrong,” she said. “Spouses win.”

He gave a crack of laughter.

“Your father is sorry that he took all that opium. He’s sorry that he drove your mother to France and then divorced her.”

His smile was almost feral. “Addicts are often sorry for what happened. I’ve seen it repeatedly.”

“And families forgive each other,” she said.

“Oh, they do? What would you know about that?”

“My parents often had occasion to forgive each other.”

He limped back toward her, put a hand under her chin. “And you, did you forgive them?”

Surprised, she blinked. He dropped his hand. “I didn’t think so. It’s easier to give advice than to take it.”

“Of course I forgive them,” she said. Though her voice betrayed uncertainty.

“Shouldn’t your father have come along with you?” Piers demanded, going straight for the jugular. “After all, I do have a carefully concocted reputation as a beast. He sent you off to the wilds of Wales without a qualm?”

“Accompanied by your father,” she said. “A duke.”

“We both have irresponsible, not to mention uncaring, relatives.” He sounded rather satisfied. “Enough of this charming chitchat. I came to tell you it’s time for luncheon.”

“Irresponsibility and lack of love don’t go together. My father loves me; he simply finds it difficult, if not impossible, to contemplate leaving the comforts of London. Your father obviously loves you, since he puts up with your foul temper and your general unlovableness.”

“I gather you’re warning me not to get my hopes up based on that small point of harmony between us?”

She hadn’t quite noticed how close he was to her. The clean, male smell of him reached out to her like a caress and set her heart racing.

“I think we have a more interesting connection than parental ineptitude,” Piers said. He switched his cane from his right to his left. She waited, just waited. A hand brushed by her cheek, curled into her hair. Still, she waited, without saying a word.