Free Jo Beverley - [Malloren] by Devilish Page B

her breath, for it did describe her state today. “Have you?”
    It burst out of raw curiosity. Though she might have glimpsed some of his vulnerabilities, she’d never imagined the marquess blown on the wind. Not even on a hurricane.
    “The coaches await,” he said, taking her basket and turning her toward the road with the slightest touch on her arm. “I do my best to tether to rock, my lady, though even rocks prove untrustworthy at times. You will miss your cousin, I think.”
    As an instinctive defensive move, she retorted, “You will miss your brother.”
    A sharp look told her she’d scored. “Your last brother,” she continued with sudden realization. “All your family save you are now married, are they not, my lord?”
    If there had been a hit, he’d recovered. “A Herculean task, but accomplished, yes.”
    “So what will you do with your matchmaking instincts now?”
    “Turn all my tender care to my country, dear lady.”
    “Matchmaking Britannia with whom?”
    “Why, with peace, of course. Does a long period of peace not seem desirable to you?” He passed the basket to a servant, but picked something out of it. She saw that one scarlet poppy had caught there. Poppy, which could aid peaceful sleep, or become a perilous addiction.
    “Peace is excellent,” she said.
    “You don’t regret the lost opportunity to seize all of France’s holdings?”
    “Do you?”
    “I thought the cost too great.”
    With the slightest of smiles he tucked the stem down her bodice, down behind her busk so it tickled between her breasts. In the end, only the vibrant blossom rested against the frill of white lace there.
    And she let him.
    She looked up into his dark, disturbing eyes, seeing that they were not dark brown, but a steely dark gray. “What do you want with me, my lord?”
    He murmured something in Greek.
    She said: “Aristotle.”
    Those heavy-lidded eyes widened, and with considerable satisfaction, she knew she had startled him. “Easier to study others than ourselves,” she translated. “More comfortable to judge their actions than our own.”
    After a moment, he said, “Of course. Having only a daughter, and one who would inherit, your father gave you a man’s education.”
    “And a devilish bore it was at times. Though,” she added mischievously, “it has occasional reward.”
    A true smile touched his lips. “Indeed. You are very good for me, Lady Arradale. A constant reminder not to underestimate women.”
    They moved on toward the coaches. “I would have thought the poet Sappho acted as reminder of that.” Instantly, she regretted it.
    He didn’t seem disturbed. “Nothing Sappho does surprises anyone. Perhaps I should have said ‘apparently conventional’ women.”
    She turned to look up at him, deliberately astonished. “You find me conventional?”
    His smile was even more pronounced this time, warming his eyes. “A mistake. I apologize profusely. So, Lady Arradale, what sort of woman are you?”
    “My lord Rothgar, turn your microscope on yourself.”
    She found the strength to walk away then. As she let a footman hand her up into a waiting coach, she gave thanks that the men were traveling on horseback. She’d rather be riding, too, for the road was not really smooth enough for carriages, but she had accepted the need to act the lady for today and now was grateful.
    Conventional? she thought, squeezing in beside her Aunt Mary. He had mostly seen her trying to act her part, but surely he couldn’t ignore their adventures last year, especially the one where she had held him at pistol point.
    Oh, plague take the man. She must stop this!
    It would be easier to stop thinking about him, however, if she didn’t have the unnerving sense that he was reacting to her just as she was to him. She looked down at the red poppy, particularly startling against her outfit of pale yellow and cream, and touched a frilly petal.
    A bold move. One that had to mean something.
    What?
    He was a man