Swinging the broom at the cats, the footman chased them around the corner of the house. It occurred to Merry that her beloved family might seem a bit eccentric. “Have we frightened you away?” she asked bluntly.
“Beg pardon?” With a leery tip of his head, Duncan eyed her, reminding her once again of a dog surprised by an act of kindness from a cruel master.
“I know we are a bit much.” With some reluctance, she eased back a bit, realizing she might be standing a little too close for his comfort. Perhaps she was being too forward, making him think she was trying to trap him. As handsome as he was, she had no doubt that he’d experienced that before at gatherings. Debutantes and their marriage-minded mamas could be relentless. “I hope we haven’t frightened you away.”
He stole a glance back at the room behind them. “It was a bitsurprising, is all. Children and dogs in the parlor during a party? I canna say I have ever seen that done in any other household.”
“Mama and Papa never relegated us to the nursery unless they positively had to.” A little brown wren, its feathers puffed to ward off the cold, hopped among the grains, its pert tail twitching as it inventoried the possibilities for its supper. “The children bring so much love and laughter into the room. I suppose we are too greedy for it to keep it penned up in the nursery.”
“Ye love children?”
“I do.” She thought to ask him the same, but something told her she might not be pleased with his answer. Everything about him shouted that Duncan preferred to be alone. The man had walls around him that she could almost reach out and touch. Remembering what his brother had said about Duncan’s upbringing, she offered him a generous smile. “I hope to have many children someday.”
Shadows darkened his eyes. “Are ye spoken for, then? Betrothed?”
“No.” She fiddled with the ribbon edging her sleeve. “But someday I will be. When I fall in love.”
“Love?” An incredulous huff escaped him. “Love matches are rare, lass.”
“Be that as it may,” she said, “I shall settle for nothing less.”
As the fat little wren picked at the seeds and bravely bluffed the other birds away from the choicest bits, Merry decided to be just as brave. After all, she’d never been one to hold her tongue before. “Do you not believe in love, Lord Kirkston?”
“Duncan.”
She turned and looked up at him, trying but failing to read him. There was so much…somethingin his eyes, so much in the sad yet stubborn set of his jaw. Never had she had so much trouble telling what was going on in another’s thoughts. Usually, she read people with amazing accuracy.
“Do you not believe in love, Duncan?” she repeated ever so softly.
“I have never known it,” he answered just as quietly, then huffed a bitter laugh and rolled his shoulders. “My mother and brother provide me with great company and an even greater amount of meddling. I am not so sure I could manage anything more than that.”
“You fear drawing too close to discover love.” She wouldn’t dance around it. He was like a puzzle she itched to solve—a puzzle she liked very much. “Why did you come here, Duncan? Did you lose a wager with your brother?”
He rummaged in his coat pocket and drew out the reticule she thought she had lost in the river. Staring down at it, he held it between them as though loath to let it go. “I came here for several reasons.”
“And they are?” she gently prodded, waiting for him to hand her the purse.
“Malcolm said I should apologize for being such an arse.” He kept his gaze locked on the reticule, slowly turning it in his hands. “I nay meant to be an arse. Sometimes, I just…” He snorted like a restless horse. “I nay meant to be so curt or fractious with ye.”
“Do you always do what your brother says?” She couldn’t help but tease him as he stood there all reluctant and sheepish, like a schoolboy caught skipping his lessons.
He looked her in the eyes then, and the grumpy, aloof marquess had returned. “I came here because I thought it right and proper.” He held out the reticule. “And because that fool brother of mine thought it great fun to nick yer purse to make me seek out yer company again.”
She wondered whether he realized how terribly his words hurt her. With a hard swallow, she jutted her chin higher, shaking off the slight. If that was how he wished to be, then so be it. She would learn to like someone else better than him—or at least she would try. “You do not like me.”
His jaw dropped, and he shifted in place while shaking his head. “I never said that…or at least…I never meant to say that—or meant it.”
His reaction made her feel better, but she refused to forgive himwith a smile. “Make me seek out your company again?” she repeated, arching a brow to drive her point home. “If you liked me, no one would have to force you to call on me.”
He resettled his stance, pawing at the floor like a bull about to charge. “Ye misunderstand me.”
“Then explain.”
After glancing back at her laughing family and his brother, he blew out a heavy sigh and faced her once again. “Would ye wish me to call upon ye?”
“That is not an explanation.”
“No, but it is something I wish to know.”
