The Defiant One (6 page)

"I do not get out in public much, madam, but when I do, I would prefer that people do not get any worse an impression of me than they already have."

"I was not aware that people already had a bad impression of you," she mumbled, still unable to meet his gaze.

"You yourself called me
strange
, did you not?"

She suddenly felt very small.  "Well . . . yes, I did.  I'm sorry, now.  It was an unkind thing to say, but you weren't the only one who was angry."

He merely looked at her, turned his back, and walked a few steps away, unwilling, perhaps unable, to accept her apology.

"I said I'm sorry," she said.

Nothing.

She had never felt so embarrassed in her life.  Because she had jumped to conclusions and humiliated him in public, he had been forced to leave her ball.  And people probably
did
have a bad impression of him now, thanks to the fact that she had been blinded by her concern for his dogs, and thus let her temper get the best of her.

As usual.

Celsie scrunched her hanging, embroidered pocket in one fist.  If anyone deserved her anger, it was the duke. 
He
was the one who had made her and Andrew the butt of some cruel joke. 
He
was the one who had made Andrew positively loathe her. 
He
was the one she ought to have been confronting, and by heavens, she was going to have that confrontation right now.

She raised her chin, determined to make as dignified an exit as possible under the circumstances.  And then she heard it:  toenails, clicking lightly in the hall just outside.  It was a welcome sound in the midst of so much awkwardness.  A moment later, a tall, rangy red and white setter, tail wagging gently, padded into the room, went up to Lord Andrew, and insinuated herself beneath his hand.

Celsie saw his fingers begin to stroke the dog's head.

"I guess if the dog likes you, I've got nothing to worry about," she said lightly, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence, trying to make amends for her horrible blunder.

He didn't bother looking at her.  "This is Esmerelda."

"That's — a pretty name," she said lamely.

"My brother gave her to me as a birthday present three years ago.  Thought I'd want to take her bird-hunting, but I don't like to shoot."

"Guns?"

"Birds."

"Oh."  She gave a nervous laugh, feeling unsettled by his brusqueness.  "I thought all men liked to kill things."

"Yes, well, I'm different.  Or, as you said yourself, madam —" he finally turned to look at her — "
strange
."

His moody, challenging stare burned into hers.  Celsie flushed and looked down at Esmerelda, who was bending her body into Andrew's leg, trying to get closer to him, her great dark eyes softening with love as she gazed worshipfully up into his face.  Celsie felt awkward.  Excluded.  Soundly chastised.  She began to wish she
had
made her exit.  She was starting to grow very hot beneath her chemise, and more than a little uncomfortable by Lord Andrew's brusqueness.  Was he incapable of forgiving?  Incapable of understanding?  For heaven's sake, Taunton, even Bonkley, was easier company than this man.  At least she knew how to handle them . . .

"I think I'd better take my leave," she said.

"Why?  I thought you wanted to see my laboratory."

"Yes, well, I wouldn't want to bother you any longer with my nosy, interfering presence," she said, trying for a lighthearted sarcasm that failed miserably.

"You forgot annoying."

Celsie began to take a deep breath, intending to count to ten.  Twenty, if she had to.  "Lord Andrew —"

"Go, leave, then," he interrupted, making an impatient, shooing motion toward the door.  His eyes looked almost savage.  "I never wanted you in here in the first place.  I never want any
females
in here, because every single one of them is bored within minutes, and I'm sure you'll be, too.  So go, before your eyes start glazing over."

"I'm not bored, merely uncomfortable.  Your manner does not exactly make a person feel welcome."

He bowed mockingly.  "A thousand apologies.  My manner is far too honest."

Celsie raised her chin and glared at him.  He gazed down at her from his superior height.  And she saw then, in his eyes, something he was trying desperately to conceal, something that hid behind his pride, something that was as plain as the hair on his broad, hard-muscled chest, before he glanced away.

He was wrong.  Honesty lay not in his manner, but in his eyes.  His defiant, surly, and yes, hopeful, eyes.  They said everything his brusqueness didn't.

He didn't want her to leave.

He would never admit it, but he didn't want her to leave.

"Apologies accepted."  She took a deep, steadying breath and let it out on a tentative smile.  "Now let's stop bickering, shall we?  I want to see your laboratory.  I promise I won't be bored —"

"Women never keep their promises."

— "and besides, I've never met any men of science before," she said, ignoring his gruff words and trying to force geniality from him.  "Did you write the formula on that easel over there?"

"Yes," he said, shooting her a glance that said,
Well, who the devil do you
think
wrote it?

"And did you design and build that great, complicated machine down there on the floor?"

"Yes."

"And look at all those books you have . . . They appear to be texts on science and math and alchemy . . .   Do you understand them all?"

Again a look of long-suffering impatience.  "I
wrote
several of them," he muttered, pulling one down and thrusting it into her hand while he bent over a table and began rifling through a large stack of papers.  "That one's my doctoral thesis."

"What is it about?"

"What does it
look
like it's about?"

"It
looks
like it's written entirely in Latin," she said tightly, but with a cheerful smile so that he would not see how much his rudeness and sarcasm were unsettling her.

"Anyone can see that it's a treatise on the components of air."

"Anyone who's a male and thus privy to an education."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it implies.  You men think of us as silly, frivolous creatures when
you're
the ones who get to go off to Eton, to Cambridge, to Oxford; 
you're
the ones who get to do Grand Tours of Europe;
you're
the ones talking politics in every London coffeehouse, in every private club, in every private dining room over your brandy after sending us women away because you think such talk would overtax our frivolous little brains.  How do you expect us to know Latin and understand the components of air when
our
education consists of learning the proper use of the fan, taking care of babies, and how to sew?"

He stared at her, his expression inscrutable.  He had the most intent, focused, single-minded gaze she'd ever seen.  It was almost unnerving.  And it remained on her for far too long.

"Stop looking at me as though I'm some bug under a microscope," she said, feeling uncomfortable.

He finally turned away, heading across the great room.  "I'll grant that men have an advantage," he said levelly, "but most of those who go up to university waste their time drinking, gambling, and whoring instead of studying."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Did you ever want to?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He shot her a quelling look from over his shoulder.  "Because I found my studies and lessons far more fascinating than the juvenile pursuits that so intrigued most of the other undergraduates."  He moved around a large table, Esmerelda following loyally at his side.  "Besides, I am the youngest son, the one who is least likely to inherit the dukedom, the one who must therefore eke out a living by some means other than a fortunate birth.  It would not have been wise to waste my education."

Well, thought Celsie, at least she'd got him talking and behaving civilly, instead of snapping out curt replies and shooting her looks of impatience.

"I hope to invent or discover something that will make me famous," he was saying, pausing at the table and one-handedly going through some papers.  "Something that will benefit the world, something that will change it as we now know it before my mind —" he flushed — "that is, before I leave this earth.  Only a fool would waste his time at university.  I may be many things, madam, but I am not a fool."

He knelt down and, bunching the blanket in his fist at one hip, began pawing through more papers on the floor, casting some aside, tossing others recklessly over his shoulder, and treating Celsie to another view of his bare back.

"Ah.  Here they are."  He extracted several large, slightly crumpled sheets of vellum from the pile and put them on the table, clearing a space through the clutter with his forearm and laying the drawings out for her to see.

She moved up beside him and stared down at one of the drawings.  "What is it?"

"An idea I've been working on to improve coach travel."

"I . . . see."

He eyed her narrowly.  "Do you?"

"Of course not.  Why don't you explain it to me?"

He looked at her as though trying to discern whether she was trying to be sarcastic; then, dismissing her remark, he smoothed the wrinkled paper with the palm of his hand.

"This is my double-compartmented stagecoach," he said, frowning as one of the wrinkles refused to flatten.  "I've often worried about the poor people forced to travel atop the roofs of coaches because there's not enough room for everyone inside, haven't you?"

"Yes.  Exposed to the elements, bounced around, clinging for dear life to avoid being thrown off, and God help them if they are . . ."

"Precisely."  He stood close to her, unnervingly so, his finger tracing the drawing, his bare shoulder just inches from her nose.  "This coach, as you see, will have a short set of pull-down stairs leading up to the roof and a second story, if you will, built onto where the rooftop passengers currently sit.  Instead of one inside compartment, as there is now, my stagecoach will have two, one atop the other.  Not only will it enable more people to travel on a single vehicle, but I predict it will cut down on the number of accidents, injuries, and deaths that are currently seen on the roads now."

Celsie stared at the drawings.

Then she looked up at their creator, this talented, surly genius, unable to prevent an awed, incredulous little smile from pulling up the corners of her mouth.  "You really are very clever."

"No, just determined," he countered, though she saw a faint tinge of color along his cheekbones and a decided warmth coming into his eyes that hadn't been there a few moments ago.

Best not to embarrass him
, Celsie thought.  She spied the corner of another drawing poking out beneath the ones of the double-compartmented stagecoach and pointed.

"And what is this?"

He pulled the drawings out, sending the ones for the stagecoach fluttering to the floor.  "My idea for a plumbing system that will revolutionize fire prevention in large houses such as this one."  He bent his head, his hair flopping over his eyes, and traced some lines with his finger.  "This here is a pump, as you can see, which will draw the water from an outside source; the water will be stored in this cask, and fed by gravity into these pipes affixed to the ceiling.  At first sign of fire, all one has to do is pull this lever and gravity will release a flood of water, thus dousing the fire and saving the house, and its occupants, from destruction."  He shoved the drawings aside.  "And this —"

"Lord Andrew."

He came up short, looking down at her with distracted impatience.  Celsie had carefully retrieved the stagecoach drawing from the floor and was staring at it in awe.

"Do you have actual models of your inventions?  I'd love to see them . . ."

"Just the stagecoach, out in the stable.  I'm afraid that
building
the confounded things is not as much fun as designing them."

"But you designed a flying machine.  I remember the sensation it caused when you launched it from the roof of this very castle last year.  All of London was talking about it.  The king himself said he had never seen anything so spectacular."

The minute the words left her mouth, Celsie knew she'd made a mistake.  His expression altered.  Irritation and dismay darkened his face, and he began hunting through more drawings, his movements abrupt.  "My flying machine was a failure."

"But according to all accounts, it was responsible for saving your life, and that of your brother Charles."

"It did not perform as it was designed to do."

"So are you going to make another one?"

"No.  I have other ideas that are far more useful to society, I think."

"Lord Andrew . . ."

He paused then, reached up to push the unruly lock of hair from his brow, and gave her a look of annoyed impatience.  "Yes?"

"Why
did
the duke say you'd been experimenting on animals?"

"I told you, to irritate me."

"But I just don't understand."  She looked at Esmerelda, who had lay down at Andrew's feet, her silky shoulders and ribs propped against his bare ankle.  "He said something about your dogs being in a state that made them, well, unfit for company."

"Unfit for — "  And then his mouth curved in a reluctant grin, and for the first time Celsie saw that he had a very boyish, very attractive, dimple in his chin.  "Oh,
that
."

"
That?
"

He busied himself collecting the drawings into a pile, as though unwilling to meet her searching gaze.  "I had a rather accidental discovery the other day.  I was making a solution, and had my mind on something else entirely.  I don't quite remember what I mixed together, but moments later, I was rowing with Lucien, Esmerelda and my sister's dog Pork were going insane, and the damned solution spilled onto the floor.  Next thing I knew the dogs were lapping it up —"