Free That Scandalous Summer by Meredith Duran

these lies left him feeling uneasy. It was not guilt that troubled him, precisely. He undertook this masquerade as plain Mr. Grey partially for his brother’s sake: were he to use his true name, word would eventually reach London that the Duke of Marwick’s brother had abandoned the hospital to live quietly in rural Cornwall, and speculation would run rampant as to the cause. He would not make Alastair the brunt of gossip until and unless his brother left him no choice. By the same token . . . to incite such gossip would be to squander one of the only weapons he had in this ridiculous little game they were playing.
    But sound motives did not make for an easy frame of mind. He ought to be in London right now. This situation was absurd in the extreme.
    “On the contrary,” he said, “I am as you see me. The only mysteries in my life are medical. I did briefly entertain a different mystery last week, but in the days since, my rosebushes have disappointed me.”
    He expected a coy reply, or perhaps even a retort bornof embarrassment. Instead she looked at him in surprise, and then burst into laughter—and his breath stopped. He nearly stopped, the better to behold her. What kind of laugh was this ? Not a polite and controlled sound, smothered behind a palm, as society ladies favored, but a surprisingly loud bellow: a laugh without a trace of self-consciousness. She laughed like a barmaid, with her entire body.
    Perhaps she was Parisian at heart.
    For a moment, he permitted himself to feel the full effect of this possibility: the hot leap of desire, the dazzled giddiness. To be walking in the sun with a beautiful woman, who gazed on him as though he were the most fascinating riddle she had ever encountered, and then laughed as though no one could amuse her better . . .
    The next moment, he checked himself. His bloody romantic temperament had gotten him into enough scrapes to last a lifetime. Perfection, he always decided within the course of five minutes’ conversation, only to conclude, two or four or six weeks later, that perfection was only a very good disguise for disaster. It never lasted.
    Besides, she knew nothing of him. She teased and flirted by nature, and would have done so no doubt with the roughest-spun laborer. He understood that, and he approved of it. She was not a snob, Mrs. Chudderley. She took fun where she found it.
    “Have you other patients to see?” she asked. “If not, I will show you around the area.”
    Damn the circumstances. In any other time or place, he would have been rampantly eager to amuse her. “In fact—”
    “It will work to your advantage to be seen with me,”she said lightly. “If you wish to establish your credentials, that is. You will find that people in these parts are inclined to mistrust a stranger, even if his medical skills recommend him.”
    “A very generous offer, for which I am properly grateful. But—”
    “And I find myself willing, because the day is so fine, to show you one of my favorite places,” she continued, and something gay and carefree in her manner tugged out a similar feeling within him, leaping and laughter-prone, much younger than he felt these days. He realized that he was grinning.
    Well . . . why not accompany her? He was bored; he had neither enough patients nor books here to keep him occupied. Attraction did not require him to act. And prolonged acquaintance with her surely would cure this budding interest he felt.
    Besides, to offend her would be unwise. If Bosbrea’s most famous citizen set out to blacken his name, prospective patients would be deterred from consulting him. Then he’d truly be out of hand.
    Oh, yes. Very sound logic, not at all self-serving. He bit his cheek. “Very well. If it’s near.”
    “It’s all near.” They walked side by side, past the last few houses, into the open country. “In fact, my land begins at this hedgerow.”
    He looked out. Havilland Hall was not visible from this vantage, but the