Part 14 (2/2)

He glanced back toward the house.

When his attention returned to her, the half-smile was gone, and his expression had hardened again. ”Will you walk with me?” he asked.

The backward glance gave Gwendolyn a good idea of what the trouble was. She kept her thoughts to herself, though, and stood obediently and walked with him in silence down a path bordered by roses. When they reached a planting of shrubs that s.h.i.+elded them from view of the house, he spoke.

”I am told that, in view of my prognosis, a guardian ought to be appointed to oversee my affairs,” he said. His voice was not altogether steady. ”Abonville proposes to act as guardian since he's my nearest male kin. It is a reasonable proposal, my own solicitor agrees. I've inherited a good deal of property, which must be protected when I become incapable of acting responsibly.”

A stinging stream of indignation shot through her. She did not see why he must be plagued with such matters this day. All he needed to sign were the marriage settlements. He should not be asked to sign his whole life away in the bargain.

”Protected from whom?” she asked. ”Grasping relatives? According to Abonville, there's no one left of the Camoys but a few dithering old ladies.”

”It isn't merely the property,” he said. His voice was taut, his face a rigid white mask.

She wanted to reach up and smooth the turmoil and tension away, but that would look like pity. She plucked a leaf from a rhododendron and traced its shape instead.

”The guardians.h.i.+p includes legal custody...of me,” he said. ”Because I cannot be responsible for myself, I must be considered a child.”

He was not irresponsible yet or remotely childlike. Gwendolyn had told Abonville so. She knew her lecture had calmed the duc down, yet it was too much to hope that her speeches could fully quell his overprotectiveness. He meant well, she reminded herself. He a.s.sumed the marriage would be too great an ordeal for her and wished to share the burden.

She could hardly expect her future grandfather to fully understand her capabilities when none of the other men in her family did. None of them took her medical studies and work seriously. Her dedicated efforts remained, as far as the males were concerned, ”Gwendolyn's little hobby.”

”It is very difficult to think clearly,” Rawnsley went on in the same ferociously controlled tones, ”with a pair of lawyers and an overanxious would-be grandpapa hovering over me. And Bertie's holding his tongue was no help, when he had to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth to do it, and he still couldn't stop sniffling. I came out to clear my head, because...d.a.m.nation.” He dragged his hair back from his face. ”The fact is, I do not feel reasonable about this. I wanted to tell them to go to the Devil. But my own solicitor agreed with them. If I object, they'll all believe I'm irrational.”

And he was worried he'd end up in a madhouse. Gwendolyn understood.

That he'd come to her with his problem seemed to be a good sign. But Gwendolyn knew better than to pin her hopes on what seemed to be.

She moved to stand in front of him. He did not look down at her.

”My lord, you are aware, I hope, that the 1774 Act for Regulating Madhouses included provisions to protect sane persons from improper detention,” she said. ”At present, only an examining body composed of imbeciles and criminal lunatics could possibly find you non compos mentis. You need not sign every stupid paper those annoying men wave in your face in order to prove you are sane.”

”I must prove it to Abonville,” he said stiffly. ”If he decides I'm mad, he'll take you away.”

She doubted the prospect was intolerable to him. She knew he'd agreed to marry her for what he believed were the wrong reasons. She doubted he'd developed a case of desperate infatuation during the last few hours.

It was far more likely that he'd come to test her. If she failed, he would believe it was wise to let her go.

Gwendolyn had been tested before, by certified lunatics, among others, and this man was no more deranged at present than she. Nevertheless she did not make the mistake of imagining this trial would be easier-or less dangerous. She had marked him as dangerous from the first moment he had turned his smoldering yellow gaze upon her. She was sure he fully understood its compelling effect and knew how to use it.

Her suspicious were confirmed when the brooding yellow gaze lowered to hers. ”What's left of my reason tells me you represent an infernal complication, Miss Adams, and I should be better off rid of you. The voice of reason, however, is not the only one I hear-and rarely the one I heed,” he added darkly.

His gaze drifted down...lingered at her mouth...then slid downward to her bodice.

Beneath layers of silk and undergarments, her flesh p.r.i.c.kled under the slow perusal, and the sensations spread outward until her fingers and toes tingled.

He was trying to make her uneasy.

He was doing a splendid job.

But he faced madness and death, she reminded herself, next to which her own anxieties could not possibly signify.

By the time the potent golden stare returned to her face, Gwendolyn had collected at least a portion of her composure.

”I am not sure you have identified the correct voice as reason's,” she said. ”I am absolutely certain, though, that if Abonville tries to take me away, I shall take a fit. I went to a good deal of trouble to get ready for the wedding. My head is stuck full of pins and my maid laced my stays so tight it is a wonder my lips haven't turned blue. It took her a full hour to tie and hook me into this gown, and I shall likely be three hours trying to get out of it.”

”I can get you out of that gown in a minute,” he said too quietly. ”And I shall be happy to relieve you of your painful stays. It would be better for you not to put such ideas into my head.”

As though they weren't already there, she thought. As though he hadn't warned her: he hadn't had a woman in a year.

Though she knew he was testing her maidenly fort.i.tude, his low voice set her nerves aquiver.

He was taller than she. And heavier. And stronger.

A part of her wanted to bolt.

But he was not on the brink of a violent lunatic fit, she scolded herself. He was feigning, to test her, and allowing him to intimidate her was no way to win his trust.

”I do not see why it would be better,” she said. ”I do not want you to be indifferent to me.”

”It would be better for you if I were.”

He had not moved an inch nearer, yet his low voice and glowing eyes exerted a suffocating pressure.

Gwendolyn reminded herself that the Almighty had been throwing obstacles in her path practically since the day she was born and had confronted her repeatedly with men determined to browbeat or frighten her.

That was sufficient practice for dealing with him.

”I know I am an infernal complication,” she said. ”I realize you feel put upon, and I do understand your resentment of your-your masculine urges, which incline you to act against your better judgment. But you are not looking on the bright side. A lack of such urges would indicate a failure of health and strength.”

She caught the flicker of surprise in his eyes in the instant before he masked it.

”You ought to look upon your animal urges as a positive sign,” she persisted. ”You are not as far gone as you thought you were.”

”On the contrary,” he said. ”I find myself in far worse case than I had imagined.”

He directed his yellow stare to a point on her left shoulder where the neckline of her growth left off and her skin began...and instantly she became hotly conscious of every square inch of her skin.

She heard a crackling sound. Looking down, she saw the paper crumpling in his tightly clenched hand.

He looked there, too. ”It hardly matters what I sign,” he said. ”Nothing matters that should.” He crushed the doc.u.ment into a ball and threw it down.

Her heart was pumping double-time, speeding the blood through her veins in preparation for flight.

”d.a.m.n me,” he said. He advanced.

She sucked in her breath.

<script>