“Because I was born with breasts.”
Stephen choked on his tea. Slamming the cup on the table, he doubled forward and began a series of loud, barking coughs that had every damned head in the establishment turning in their direction.
“You’ve drawn liquid into your airway instead of your esophagus,” Abigail said calmly, raising her voice above his retching. “Swallow, take a deep breath, swallow again, and sit up.”
His face red, his eyes watering, his dignity gone, Stephen eventually sat upright and swiped a hand across his mouth, then waved it in the air as a sign for everyone to return to whatever they’d been doing before he’d nearly gagged to death on poorlymade tea. If the bloody colonists hadn’t pitched good British tea into their harbor thirty some years ago, maybe he wouldn’t have choked on whatever this herbal-tasting swill was today.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, scowling at his cup.
“Liquid and food are meant to travel down the esophagus. When they enter the trachea instead, the body’s natural reaction is to expel the foreign object by any means necessary.” She drummed her fingers on the edge of the table. “I’d like to leave. As I said before, I am going to miss my coach.”
“I am sorry your... bosom... prevented you from being accepted into school, but neither of us is going anywhere until we figure this out.”
“What is there to figure out?” she retorted sharply. “We were betrothed to be married when you were a young child and I was a baby. We are now adults, and I no longer wish to be betrothed. That’s the end of it.”
“Then youdoknow who I am and why I am here.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And my letters? They did reach you, I presume.”
She glanced down at her lap. “It’s been a very cold winter.”
“Youburnedthem?”
“I can appreciate that it must have been a large inconvenience to come here, Lord...”
“Call me Stephen.”
“Lord Stephen.”
“No, just Stephen.”
“Then you’re not a lord?” she said, her forehead creasing.
“Viscount Brunswick, heir to the earldom of Lancaster.”
“My mother told me that your family’s surname was Highborn. Has it changed to Brunswick?”
“No, that is my father’s secondary title.”
“He has two?”
“Three, strictly speaking.”
“How many titles can one person have?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I believe the Duke of Gloucester has eleven.”
“Eleven?What does he do with them all?”
“I’m not certain. I think we’ve fallen a bit off—”
“Should I call you Lord Brunswick, Lord Lancaster, Lord Highborn, or Lord Sandwich?”
Stephen stared at her. This exasperating, oddly enchanting fiancée that he’d sailed across an ocean to find. This fiancée who knew the difference between a trachea and an esophagus, but not a viscount and an earl.
“Why thedevilwould you call me Lord Sandwich?”
