Free Rules of Engagement by Christina Dodd Page A

he raised his head and asked, "Are you still mouthing that dull-witted resolve not to love?"
    Kerrich wanted to groan. When, at the age of eleven, he had first sworn not to love, Lord Reynaud had been philosophical, even indulgent. But as the years had gone on and Kerrich had stuck to his resolution, Lord Reynaud had tried more and more to dissuade him. Kerrich understood Lord Reynard's reasons. He wanted to see Kerrich happy, and he wanted great-grandchildren. "I've never met a woman who made me want to abandon my resolution."
    "If you did, you'd run as fast as you could in the opposite direction, like the coward you are." Lord Reynard groaned as he sank back into the comfort of his armchair. "These old bones can't bear the jolting of a coach like they used to. Bring the whisky when you come back, my lad."
    "The doctor says you shouldn't be drinking spirits." But Kerrich fetched the bottle and two glasses as he spoke.
    "Damned old fool," Lord Reynard condemned the doctor in one pithy, often-repeated phrase. "I've been drinking whisky all my life. That's why I'm still here, hale and hearty and eighty-nine years old."
    "You're bragging again," Kerrich answered mildly as he placed the glasses on the table between the two armchairs. "You're only eighty-four."
    "And a better man than you'll ever be." Lord Reynard watched as Kerrich poured. "I didn't have to adopt a child to get one. I made my own."
    "You just got caught with your pants down, that's all." Kerrich handed over a glass. "And not until you were thirty-four, either, so I've four more years."
    "Yes, your grandmother never admitted it, but I think she arranged to have her father catch us. I'd scarcely stormed the portal when he—"
    Kerrich flinched away. "Please, Grandpapa! I don't want to know."
    Lord Reynard grinned at Kerrich's squeamishness. "How do you think your father got here, lad? He was not angel-borne, or found under a cabbage leaf."
    "If I choose to believe so, I think you should let me have my illusions." Kerrich slumped in his chair.
    Taking the glass, Lord Reynard lifted it high. "To your grandmama, the smartest woman ever born and the woman I loved."
    "To Grandmama." Kerrich joined in the toast to the woman he remembered as stem and disciplined, although his grandfather seemed to have completely different recollections, none of which Kerrich wanted to acknowledge.
    After Lord Reynard had drained the glass, he held it out to be refilled.
    Kerrich complied, knowing full well the old man would sip this one through the afternoon and into the evening.
    "A man of years has to survive on memories." Lord Reynard sounded sentimental.
    Lord Reynard's sentimentality was always suspect and usually at Kerrich's expense, so he retorted, "As old as you are, you should have memories to last you a good long time."
    "Ah, lad, you shouldn't grudge me my reminiscences, especially when you're the only one I can reminisce with. All my friends and my enemies are dead, my only child is dead, your mother's off somewhere with that gigolo of hers—"
    "Italy, last I heard, and that gigolo is making her very happy."
    "At your expense."
    "Worth every penny." Kerrich lifted his glass to the dowager countess of Kerrich. She was his mother and he loved her, but resentfully. Every time he saw her, he remembered his father. His father was the wisest, kindest, best man he'd ever met, and his mother hadn't even waited a year after his death before she'd found herself another man. She said she suffered a broken heart. Kerrich thought she had chosen an odd way of healing it. No, Mother was the kind of complex, intelligent woman Kerrich had made a career of steering clear of. Give him the burbling, empty-headed ones who played for pleasure without a thought to the consequences; Kerrich's life was easier with his mother in Italy.
    The glow of firelight danced on Lord Reynard's bald head and cast a golden gleam on the fringe of white hairs around his ears. "Speaking of old memories and getting