How to Woo a Reluctant Lady (23 page)

“Well, we wouldn’t have wanted to play with fellows as old and decrepit as you lot anyway.”

“I’m not
that
much older than you,” he said with an edge in his voice.

She glanced up at him in surprise. He was self-conscious about his
age
, of all things. How delicious! “No, not that much older. I daresay you have a couple of years before you have to resort to false teeth.”

“A couple of years!” When she grinned at him, he frowned. “That is
not
amusing.”

“Wait, is that a gray hair I see?” she teased, reaching up to touch his decidedly brown locks.

“Watch it, minx,” he growled, “or I’ll treat you like the child you are and take you over my knee.”

“A spanking?” she said. “Oh, that
does
sound interesting.”

Shock lit his face. Then he laughed. “I swear, you aren’t like any woman I know.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s a very good thing.” He brushed a kiss to the top of her head.

They fell silent. After a while, the hot noon sun and the chirping of the birds lulled them both into a state of pure drowsy contentment. Then they dozed off.

The unmistakable sound of a rifle being cocked brought Giles instantly awake. He looked up into the implacable face of the Marquess of Stoneville and then lower to the barrel of a Manton breechloader aimed right at his head.

This was bad. Very, very bad.

He felt Minerva stir beside him, then cry, “Oliver, what the devil do you think you’re doing? Put that away! You might hurt him!”

Stoneville’s gaze bore into Giles’s, cold as death. “What a pity
that
would be.”

“This isn’t how it looks,” Minerva said.

Giles tamped down a manic urge to laugh. “I doubt he believes that, minx.”

“Minerva,” Stoneville said, “you have about one minute to put some clothes on before everybody else gets here.”

“Everybody else?” she squeaked.

“Oliver, what do you think you’re doing?” cried an aged voice from the path.

“Too late,” Stoneville muttered.

Everything happened at once. With a shriek, Minerva dived for her clothes. Several dogs burst into the little space, dragging along Halstead Hall’s gamekeeper and an assortment of servants. Lady Celia came after them.

And Mrs. Plumtree appeared at Stoneville’s side. “You cannot shoot Mr. Masters!”

“Oh, I’m fairly certain I can,” Stoneville drawled. “I’ve got a
pretty good bead on him.”

Giles groaned. His life definitely hung in the balance. If he’d found some scoundrel lying half-naked on the ground with
his
sister, he would have reacted exactly like Stoneville. Only he would have aimed lower. And he would have fired by now.

“But if you shoot him, how can he be any good to Minerva?” Mrs. Plumtree said.

“I’m not sure he can be anyway,” Stoneville snapped.

“I can if I marry her,” Giles said. “And I
will
marry her.”

“I don’t know if I
want
you to marry my sister,” Stoneville growled.

“And I don’t know if I want to marry
him,
” Minerva said hotly.

Giles’s heart sank as she came up to stand beside Stoneville, her eyes flashing fire. She’d managed to struggle into her petticoat and gown but had abandoned her corset and apparently couldn’t fasten her gown, which hung loosely on her.

Bloody, bloody hell. This wasn’t how he’d meant this to happen. Minerva hated being forced almost as much as he did. She was bound to be stubborn about this.

“If you are willing to roll about on the ground half-naked with the man, then you had better be willing to marry him,” her grandmother said in a hard voice.

“I’d rather shoot him,” Stoneville said. “Either now, or at dawn tomorrow.”

“You’re not going to shoot Giles,” Minerva snapped, “so just get that idea out of your head.” Walking over to her brother, she shoved the rifle to the side.

It went off, spitting a bullet into the ground a few inches from Giles’s head.

Giles sprang to his feet. “What the hell—”

“Don’t ever do that again!” Stoneville shouted at his sister as the blood drained from his face. “That rifle has a damned hair-trigger, for God’s sake!”

“Are you
trying
to get me killed, Minerva?” Giles growled.

“I-I thought it wasn’t really loaded,” she said, her face ashen.

Giles strode up to her. “Next time someone has a gun trained on me, would you please let
me
handle it?”

“But you
weren’t
handling it!” Minerva protested. “You were just lying there, looking as if you thought you were about to die.”

“Because I
was
, damn it! Thanks to you, I nearly did!”

“Quiet, both of you!” Mrs. Plumtree cried. “Good Lord, you sound like a married couple already.” Her gaze shifted to Giles, who was struggling into his riding breeches. “Are you going to marry her?”

“Of course,” Giles said just as Minerva said, “There’s no need for that.”

Minerva stared at her grandmother. “This is all a terrible misunderstanding. We merely went for a swim and had a picnic lunch. Then we fell asleep. I’m still chaste.”

“Save your breath.” Giles tugged his shirt on. “They’re not going to believe you.”

“And how did you find us anyway?” Minerva went on, ignoring Giles.

“That blasted Mr. Pinter has been spying on Mr. Masters for Gran,” Celia said. “He followed Mr. Masters to the estate this morning.”

Giles groaned. When Mrs. Plumtree had said she’d have Pinter look into his finances, it never occurred to him that the man might go beyond that. And how had he not noticed the fellow following him?

But he knew how. He’d been thinking of only one thing—
meeting Minerva and giving her the taste of passion that she wanted. That they both wanted.

Damn it, this was what came of following his cock.

Minerva was gazing at her grandmother, perplexed. “Why would you have Mr. Pinter spy on Giles?”

“To make sure he was good enough for you,” Mrs. Plumtree said, a trifle nervously.

“I see.” Minerva planted her hands on her hips, which only made the gown droop more. “And what did he discover?”

“Mr. Masters is financially sound and is doing very well in his profession. He is even building a house in Berkeley Square. So you see, girl, he is not marrying you for your fortune. There is no reason not to accept him.”

“Ah, but there’s a very good reason,” Minerva said in a heart-wrenching voice. “He’s being forced into it. And I don’t want a man who has to be forced to marry me.”

“But he’s
not,
” Mrs. Plumtree cried. “He truly wants to marry you. He assured me of it himself that day when you first announced the engagement.”

“Of course he did. I told him to.” Minerva sighed. “Don’t hate me, Gran, but this whole thing has just been a ruse to—”

“Alarm me into rescinding my ultimatum,” Mrs. Plumtree said. “I know. He told me. He also told me that it wasn’t a ruse for him. That he truly wanted to marry you.”

Giles cursed under his breath. Could this possibly get any worse?

“You told her
what
?” Minerva said with a look of pure betrayal.

He stepped forward to grab her arm. “If you lot will excuse us, I think it’s time I had a private word with my fiancée.”

M
INERVA’S MIND WHIRLED
as they headed into the woods,
her gown still deplorably half-fastened. Why had Giles told Gran about her subterfuge? And did that mean he’d really been serious about marrying her from the beginning? That he
hadn’t
simply been going along with her plans to shock Gran so he could get her to stop writing about Rockton?

What it meant was that he was every bit as devious and sly as she’d feared. And he had a plan of his own. She just had to figure out how she fit into it.

She stopped and faced him, noting the look of guilt on his face.

No, she had to figure out how to
use
it to her benefit. Because after this afternoon, there was no point in denying that she wanted him—as a man, as a companion, and yes, as a husband. But on her terms, not his. It was time that Giles Masters—and Gran—learned that she wouldn’t tolerate their planning out her life for her.

She stared him down with the cold expression she’d perfected for unsavory suitors. “Is it true? Did you tell Gran that I intended our engagement to be only pretend?”

His guilty look deepened. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“Really? Because it sounds as if you’ve been conspiring with my grandmother to gain my hand in marriage. Even though I distinctly remember telling you that I did
not
want to marry you.”

He winced.

A horrible thought occurred to her. “You didn’t engineer this little scene of discovery by my family just so you could force me to marry you, did you?”

“No! I had no idea Pinter was following me.”

She eyed him askance.

He looked a little ill. “I swear to God I didn’t plan this.”

“And how am I supposed to believe you, when you’ve been lying to me all along?”

“I haven’t lied to you,” he said. “I’ve merely left out parts of the truth.”

She scowled. “I specifically recall asking you if you’d told Gran about my subterfuge.”

“Then you should specifically recall how I answered.”

She thought back to that day. What had he said? Oh yes.
You promised to kill off Rockton. Why would I jeopardize that by scheming with your grandmother?

He really
was
a sly one, answering her question with a question to avoid lying to her.

What’s more, she remembered what he’d said when she’d asked what he’d told Gran:
I told her I wanted to marry you. That I admired and respected you. That I could support you.

From what Gran had implied, that probably wasn’t a lie, either.

“If you didn’t quite lie, you certainly bent the truth. You knew what I thought.”

He stepped close to her. “I also knew you had a lot of baseless opinions about me that would keep you from agreeing to marry me. I wanted time to prove that you were wrong about me. To prove I could be a good husband to you.” Taking her hands in his, he pressed them to his lips. “Haven’t I proved that yet?”

Oh, he could coax the birds from the skies with all his sweet words. “All you’ve proved is that I can’t trust you. That you will always be scheming to run my life.”

“I have enough trouble running my own life, minx,” he said drily. “I’ve no great desire to run yours, too.”

“So this wasn’t about trying to get me to stop writing about Rockton? It has nothing to do with that?”

He started, then glanced away with a curse.

“That’s what I thought.” She jerked her hands from his, but he caught her about the waist, refusing to let her go, even when
her gown slid half off her shoulder.

“Listen to me, darling,” he said in that low thrum that always made her insides flip over. “I came to Halstead Hall that day because I wanted to marry you. And yes, partly for the reason you say. But that wasn’t the only reason.” His voice grew husky. “I’ve wanted you from the day we first kissed. I just couldn’t find a way to fit you into my life until now.”

She stared him down. “How exactly
am
I supposed to fit into your life? I’m drenched in scandal. My parents’ deaths, my family’s present situation . . . my books—none of it fits into the life of a prominent barrister well on his way to becoming a K.C.”

“It
can,
” he said. “All you have to do is—”

“Stop writing.”

“No! I told you—that doesn’t matter to me.”

“It will eventually.”

He scowled at her. “What about your favorite author, Mrs. Radcliffe? She was married for her entire career, and her husband was a newspaper publisher. It didn’t appear to harm
his
reputation or profession.”

“But she wasn’t the wife of a K.C. You and I both know that K.C.’s often go on to become judges or statesmen.” Her voice faltered. “You are destined for great things.”

“I don’t care. And you
shouldn’t
care.”

“Then there’s the matter of children. Mrs. Radcliffe had no children, did she?”

At the word
children
, he caught his breath.

“You
want
children, don’t you?” she asked, her heart beating triple-time.

“Of course.” His voice thickened. “You do, too, admit it. No one could write about children so fondly in her books and not want some of her own.”

“The point is—”

“Enough excuses,” he said. “The Minerva I know can make whatever sort of life she chooses. She’s strong and fearless and capable of bringing public opinion around to her side. That’s the Minerva I want, the Minerva who isn’t afraid to take a bull by the horns.”

Oh, he knew just the right things to say, the devil. It really was most annoying of him.

He reached up to cup her cheek. “We can make a good life together—we can make it work. I’m convinced of it. For once, trust me to know what I’m talking about.”

“Trust you? When you evade the truth at every turn? When you still won’t even tell me why you stole those papers years ago? Something that small, and you refuse to reveal—”

“It’s not small, all right?” he gritted out. Releasing her, he turned to stare into the woods. “It’s personal, having to do with my family.”

“They will soon be my family, too, if I marry you. Which is doubtful, when you continue to keep secrets from me at every turn.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, then pivoted to face her. “I can’t talk about it to you. All I can tell you is that it involved my father and the loss of a great sum of money.”

“Oh, Lord!” She put things together in her mind. “That happened around the time of the suicide, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said warily. “Why?”

“Well, the newspapers never said why he killed himself, but I assumed . . . that is, men who lose at the gaming tables often . . .” She took a steadying breath. “You were stealing gambling vowels, weren’t you?”

Shock filled his face. “Gambling vowels?”

“Of your father’s. You weren’t stealing money, so it had to
be IOUs.” When he scowled, she added, “I know matters were difficult for your family then. That’s why your brother had to marry an heiress, right? I heard my brothers talking about it.”