“Unluckily for me,” she said sweetly, “I don’t know what the word precipitate means, so I missed the compliment you were giving me.”
“I was talking about that scrap of royal blood you’re supposedly carrying in your womb,” he growled.
Linnet glanced over her shoulder. There was still no sign of the duke or the medical students. “What of it?”
He stopped again. “There’s no baby in that belly, Miss Thrynne. The fact that you have tied a cushion around your waist may be sufficient to confuse my father, but not me.” He started walking again.
Linnet looked at his shoulders and realized that she would have to curb this habit of his, or she would spend the rest of her life scrambling after him. “Is it your limp that makes you walk like this?” she asked, raising her voice.
“What do you think?” he said, halting again. “Do you suppose that I stagger like a drunken sailor for the pure pleasure of it?”
“I don’t mean the stagger,” she said. “I mean the way you’re scurrying along the corridor like a kitchen maid afraid of the cook.”
He froze for a moment and then, rather to her surprise, gave a bark of laughter. It sounded rusty, as if from disuse. “I’m bored by corridors,” he said.
“I’m bored by people’s shoulders.”
His eyes were remarkably lustrous in the dim light of the corridor. He didn’t have his father’s beauty, but Linnet began to see that he had his own. It was a more brutal, stronger kind, a sort of beauty that burned from his eyes.
“Bloody hell. You’re not what I expected.”
“I must not be quite as famous as you are,” she said, catching up to him. He didn’t offer, but she put her fingertips on his right arm, thinking that would at least keep him at her side.
“With that face, I would imagine that polite society knows all about you.”
“And what do you know of polite society?”
“Not a thing,” he said, starting to walk. He didn’t mention her touch, but he did slow down to keep beside her.
“At the moment, I’m more notorious than famous,” she said, taking the bull by the horns.
“Because of that baby you don’t actually have,” he said. “Odd, that. I thought the gentry were more outraged by babies, than the lack thereof. Did you start wearing the cushion as some sort of joke?”
“I put it on this morning just for you,” she said.
“How did you figure out that my father would be unable to resist you, under the circumstances? It was a remarkably clever ploy, given his obsession with the family name.” For the first time there was a germ of admiration in his voice.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Not that it’s going to work.”
Linnet was thinking precisely along those lines, though she saw no reason to let him know. “Oh, but I think we’re perfectly suited,” she said, just to needle him.
“A barking-mad doctor—that’s me—and a wickedly conniving beauty—that’s you—limping along together in a lifetime of happiness? I hardly think so. You’ve been reading too many fairy stories.”
“Who says I can read? I can barely count, remember?”
He glanced at her and she decided, once again, to withhold the family smile. “I’m starting to think I may have been wrong about your abilities. You can probably count all the way to ten and back.”
“That just warms my heart,” she cooed. “Since it comes from the great doctor and all.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “So just when did you think you’d inform your husband about the royal baby that doesn’t exist?”
“I could have lost the babe.”
“I’m a physician, remember?”
“I thought you were a surgeon.”
“I do it all,” he said, starting to speed up again.
She tightened her fingers on his arm, feeling muscles flex as his arm took the weight of his body, leaning on his cane.
He looked sideways, slowed down, but didn’t say anything.
“So you’re a surgeon,” she prompted, and asked once more, “Are those men all your students?”
“I don’t have students,” he said in a disgusted tone. “I leave that for the fools in London. What you saw are hopeless idiots who found their way here to make my life hell. You may have noticed the driveling idiot in the front, the blond one. He’s the worst.”
“He looks old to be a student,” Linnet said.
“Sébastien. My cousin. He’s actually not a bad surgeon. Claims to be writing a book on the subject, but actually he’s just got the wind up, so he’s hiding here.”
“Hiding from what?”
“He seems to be convinced that Napoleon is losing his mind. It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s Marquis Latour de l’Affitte, by the way, so it’s a miracle he made it through the last ten years with his pretty head intact.”
They reached the stairs leading down to the main floor. “If you want to keep holding onto me, you’ll have to move to my left side,” Marchant said. “Though, of course, there’s always the possibility that you could descend the stairs all by yourself.”
Linnet moved to his left side, just to irritate him. She curled her fingers under his arm this time. She rather liked all that muscle under her hand. It felt as if she were taming a wild beast.
“I suppose you think I’ll fall in love with you,” he said.
“Quite likely.”
“How long do you give yourself?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“Two weeks at the outside.” And then she did give him the smile—dimples, charm, sensuality and all.
He didn’t even blink. “Was that the best you’ve got?”
Despite herself, a giggle escaped, and then another. “Generally, that’s more than enough.”
“I suppose I should say something reassuring at this point.” He pitched his voice to a groveling apology. “It’s not me, it’s you.” Then: “Oops! Got that backwards. It’s not you, it’s me.”
“I suppose your injury gives you immunity,” she said, having already figured that out. She’d miscalculated when she counted his incapability as a plus. It made him uninterested in her charms, which meant their marriage would never work.
The duke was simply going to have to reconcile himself to the lack of an heir.
Marchant’s frosty blue eyes flickered over to her and then away. “Something like that.”
“I didn’t mean to mention it, if it’s a sore subject,” she said, making up her mind to irritate him all she could. “I’m sure it must be difficult to feel that you’re . . . what is the phrase? A pussycat. A powder puff.”
“Pussycat?” To her disappointment, he didn’t sound irritated, just wryly amused. “I think of myself more as a . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’ll have to think about it. To find the perfect phrase, you understand.”
“Don’t fret,” she counseled him. “I’m sure I can solve our little problem once we’re married. Wales is likely full of strapping lads, ready to do their lord a favor.”