“Of course I do. And I suppose you never met your father because . . .”
He didn’t respond, just waited for her to speculate.
“Because you lived in France your whole childhood?”
“After age six. I grew up with my cousin, that blond-headed fool you saw misdiagnosing a fever.”
“Is it common for peers to become doctors in France?” she asked. “I must say that it’s quite unusual here.”
He shrugged. “Sébastien and I shared a childhood passion for cutting things open and seeing how they worked. Neither of us could see any reason to change when we grew up, and besides, the Revolution came along and killed off most of the French aristocrats, if you remember.”
He eyed her. “Are you old enough to remember?”
“Of course I am. Were the two of you in any danger?”
“The French medical schools closed in ’92, so we came to England and studied at Oxford instead.”
“So you missed the worst of the uprisings. That was lucky.”
She finished her champagne. Piers watched her throat move as she swallowed. The human body was a fascinating thing. “My mother lost her husband in ’94, but luckily not her head,” he added.
“Why didn’t you meet your father when you returned to this country?”
“I didn’t want to. I had clear memories of him. He’s a weak fool.”
“So is my father,” she said, rather surprisingly. “But I love him, and he’s my father. And your father, by the way, is no fool. I dined with him every night on the way here, and he has twice the brains of my father.”
“Why don’t you marry him, then?” Piers said it mockingly, before he thought. Then his whole body tensed with sudden revulsion. He’d commit patricide before he’d allow that.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m fairly sure I can find someone to marry who’s within twenty years of my age. And given a choice, I’d rather do so.”
“But you weren’t given a choice when it came to being my wife, were you?”
“Women are rarely given a choice,” she said. “We have very little voice in the matter.”
“If I asked you to marry me, then you’d have the choice.”
She gurgled with laughter. “You don’t want to marry me.”
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“No.”
“There. Don’t you feel empowered? You turned down an earl before supper was even on the table. Surely you can coerce another proposal from one of those poor doctors before bedtime. Bitts has the best background; he’s the second son to a viscount, or something like that.”
She laughed again. It was alarming how much he liked that laugh. She really was a dangerous woman.
The door opened and Prufrock ushered in the three young doctors currently making a nuisance of themselves trying to learn medicine.
“Penders, Kibbles, and Bitts,” Piers said, nodding at each in turn. “Kibbles is the only one with working brains; Bitts is a gentleman, so there weren’t any for him to inherit. And Penders is improving, which is good because there was nowhere to go but up. Gentlemen, this is Miss Thrynne, my fiancée.”
She gave them the patented smile she’d tried out on him. They melted like butter, and Penders actually swayed a little.
“Show some backbone,” Piers said, reaching out and giving him a poke. “You’ve seen a beautiful woman before, haven’t you?”
“Very pleased to meet you,” Kibbles said, sweeping into a bow so low that he almost lost his balance.
The door opened once again and Prufrock announced, “The Duke of Windebank. The Marquis LaTour de l’Affitte.”
Piers leaned back against the sideboard and waited to see how his ostensible fiancée would handle being the only woman in the room. With one glance, he warned his father to keep his distance, and the man did, wandering over to glance through the windows overlooking the sea.
That left four men to slaver over Linnet. Even Sébastien, whom he’d judged to have more brains than he was exhibiting at the moment.
Linnet gave that throaty little laugh she had, and Sébastien moved closer, his eyes alight in a way that Piers had seen previously only in the operating chamber.
To his utter surprise, he felt a low growl rising in his throat. Jealousy, he diagnosed. Together with a nasty bit of dog-in-the-manger sensibility. I don’t want her myself, but I don’t want anyone else to have my shiny new toy either.
With that thought in mind he pushed away from the sideboard and hobbled over to see his dear father. It had to be done, after all. He could hardly house the man under his own roof and ignore him entirely.
The duke turned, but then merely stood there, as if he expected Piers to strike him. It was damned annoying.
“I thought we had an agreement,” Piers said.
He nodded. “I broke it.”
“You’re not to come near me. In return I give you tacit leave to place spies in my house—”
His father started to speak, but Piers raised his hand. “Don’t think me a fool. Prufrock didn’t find his way to the wilds of Wales on his own. I sometimes think I should reduce his wages, given what you are undoubtedly paying him.”
Silence.
Piers eyed him, but somehow there wasn’t much pleasure in being rude. He’d spent so many years hating the man that it was rather odd to discover—now that they were finally face-to-face—that he was, after all, just a man.
“I take it you’re no longer an opium addict,” he said. As a doctor, he knew. He’d learned the signs of opium addiction before that, though: at his mother’s knee, watching his father.
“It’s been twelve years. How is your mother?”
“You probably know that her husband lost his head in the Terror. She was fond of him.”
He nodded.
“Of course you do. You likely have spies in her household as well.”
“You were right to get her out of France,” the duke said, not bothering to deny it. “I don’t like the feeling of things over there.”
“That was Sébastien,” Piers said. “I didn’t give it a second thought. He whisked our mothers out of the country a month or so ago and then turned up here himself.”
“I’ll—I’ll stay here until you’re married, and then I’ll leave you alone again.” The duke gave a jerky little bow.
Piers thought about whether to tell him that the marriage was off, and decided not. It was none of his father’s business, for all he had produced the bride in question. He glanced over his shoulder to find that Linnet was smiling up at Seb.
“She’s exquisite,” the duke said, with a trace of pride.
“Even better, she’s got a royal babe in tow,” Piers said, cutting to the heart of his rhapsody. “Quite a bargain you found for me: wife and heir in one sweet package.”
“Prince Augustus would be hard for any woman to resist, let alone one as young and beautiful as Miss Thrynne. But in case you’re worried, I asked her, and she’s not in love with the prince.”
Piers almost grinned at that. No, Linnet was not in love with the prince. She actually reminded him a bit of himself. Chances were good that she would never succumb to such an embarrassing emotion. “What if she’s carrying a girl? You’re still out an heir.”