Free Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh

“one that revolves about you. The Peninsula was full of rude, blustering officers who believed other people had been created to pay them homage. I always thought they were merely silly and best ignored.”
    And she turned, the baggage, and began walking back the way they had come. She did not look behind her to see if he was following. He was not. He stood where he was, his arms folded over his chest, until she was out of earshot. Then he looked down at the dog.
    “If there is a type of woman that grates upon my every nerve more than any other,” Percy said, “it is the type that always has to have the last word.
Rude
and
blustering
.
Silly.
SILLY!
‘
I always thought they were best ignored.’
For two pins I would go straight to the stables, mount my horse, and set its head for London. Forget about this ungodly place. Let you and all your playmates overrun the house until it is derelict. Let the earl’s apartments turn to mildew. Let that steward turn into a fossil in his dusty office. Leave Lady Lavinia Hayes alone with her cousin and her bleeding heart. Let that marble pillar beggar herself with the bill for her roof and all the other repairs that are bound to be needed. Let the tide ebb and flow against the cliffs until eternity wears them away and both houses fall off.”
    Hector had no opinion to offer, and there was no point in Percy’s standing here, pointlessly venting his frustration as he watched the cause of it recede into the distance.
    “At least then I would not find myself babbling nonsense to a
dog
,” he said
.
“I suppose you have exhausted yourself, though if you have it is entirely your own fault. You cannot say I did not warn you. And I suppose you are ready for your dinner so that you can build up some fat to hide those bones from sight. Come, then. What are you waiting for?”
    He looked for a gap in the gorse bushes and found one that would leave only a few surface scratches on his boots as he pushed through it—Watkins would look tragically stoic. But as he stepped into the gap, he looked back at the dog, scowled at it, and stooped to lift it over the prickly barrier, hoping as he did so that no one could see him. He set off grimly across the lawn in the direction of the house.
    At least, he thought—
at least
he was not feeling bored. Though it did occur to him that boredom was perhaps not such a sad state after all.

5
    T he afternoon brought visitors.
    Somehow word had spread that the Earl of Hardford was in residence, and since the correct thing to do was to call upon him, people called. Besides, everyone was agog with curiosity to make his acquaintance at last.
    Imogen had been planning to spend the afternoon at the dower house, although its roofless state made even the downstairs rooms almost unbearably chilly. She had missed luncheon because she could not bear the thought of making polite conversation with
that man,
who had provoked her to rudeness but who would no doubt be all smooth charm with the older ladies. She had also been feeling agitated after telling him her story, brief and undetailed though she had made it. She almost never spoke of the past or thought of it when she could help it. Even her dreams were only rarely nightmares now.
    Before she could set out for her own home, however, the first of the visitors arrived, and it would have been ill-mannered to leave even though they had not come, strictly speaking, to see her. She just wished she did not have to be sociable on this particular afternoon, though. For everyone was enamored of the Earl of Hardford as soon as they met him. His very presence here was sufficient to please them, of course. But his youth and extraordinary good looks, coupled with the excellence of his tailoring, dazzled the ladies and impressed the gentlemen. His charm, his smile, and his ready conversation completed the process of bowling them over. He assured everyone that he was delighted to be here at last, that there was surely nowhere else on