Free When It's Perfect by Adele Ashworth

the expectation of a servant queuing for instruction.
    He didn’t like that at all.
    “Not tonight. I want to hear what else Christine said about me. I’m fearful.”
    Her brows lifted minutely, then she smiled slyly. “That’s twice today you’ve asked me that directly.”
    “Twice? I see. I hadn’t counted.”
    When he added nothing more, she sighed and relaxed a bit into her stays, leaning her hip and shoulder against the window’s edge. “Let’s see… she said you were naturally inquisitive.”
    “She’s right. I am.”

    “Hmmm…” She eyed him thoughtfully. “She said you saved her life once.”
    Marcus laughed heartily at that, falling back against the window as well, facing her, the sparkle of bright stars shirting on the sill between them.
    “Not exactly,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s more accurate to say I rescued her from her own stupidity.”
    Mary drew a frown, then crossed her arms over her breasts. “Explain that, if you please.”
    He shook his head in continued amusement, noting how the lamp at their side cast streaks of light in her uptwisted blond hair: an array of night-time shimmer on one side, reflected gold on the other. Beauty at the center.
    “She didn’t tell you the story?”
    Mary shook her head. “She said only that you and she had quarreled and that she’d taken a boat out into the bay and couldn’t row it back in.
    You pulled her back to safety before she drowned.”
    Marcus closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, chuckling again. “That would be the way she’d tell it. Skimming the details.”
    “Well, you may share your interpretation of the details, if you like,”
    Mary said impatiently. “But frankly, Lord Renn, I rather enjoyed her version of the story.”
    He raised his eyes to her again. “Did you?”
    She didn’t answer that, just lifted her brows in mock challenge.
    He grinned wryly, folding his arms across his chest. “When she was about thirteen, a year or so before I left for Egypt, she and I had a row.”
    “About?”
    He didn’t expect such exactitude from her. But since she seemed to ask in genuine interest, he decided it couldn’t hurt to mention it now.
    “Christine wanted to go to the beachfront on the bay for a nighttime celebration, which was to include a display of fireworks set out over the water as entertainment. It was to be a true social gathering for the local gentry, including many of the eligible gentlemen from all parts of Cornwall. Naturally she wanted to be there.”
    “Naturally,” Mary cut in, amused.
    He brushed over that. “I refused her permission.”
    “Why?”
    He furrowed his brows. “Because she was only thirteen.”
    “I see. Couldn’t you or George have gone as chaperone?”

    He rubbed his chin with his forefinger and thumb, studying her.
    “Yes, but that wasn’t the point.”
    “What was the point?”
    Marcus simply marveled at her audacity. “The point was that she was only thirteen. Regardless of who was to be attending that night, it wasn’t a gathering for young girls.”
    Mary lowered her arms and clasped her hands together in front of her. “I see. So what happened?”
    “She got angry enough to sneak out that evening at half past ten, climb down the trellis hanging from her bedroom window, and head toward the water.” He smirked. “Of course I was waiting.”
    Mary grinned, then pressed her lips together. “I see. Weren’t you the sneaky brother.”
    He leaned over toward her and lowered his voice. “Just as sneaky as my sister. I knew her well.”
    Mary’s smile faded, and once again, from his own words, Marcus felt the raw pulling in his gut that reminded him so well of his loss.
    He drew a deep breath and gazed out the window to the star-sprinkled sky. “I chased her, but she jumped into a waiting rowboat, and with one oar, began to slap the water to keep me away. It broke in two, from hitting either a rock or the side of the boat, but she