One day while Prince Brad was jaunting around the forest with his retinue he stopped by a pond. There he decided to demonstrate his skills in throwing a dagger and in doing so dropped the dagger into the pond.
“Bugger,” said Prince Brad. “I liked that dagger.”…
—From The Frog Princess
An hour later Adam reached into St. John’s carriage and gathered his grandmother into his arms. St. John himself was dealing with the horses and Adam’s servants.
“Such nonsense,” Grand-mère said breathlessly as he lifted her. “I can certainly walk to the door.”
“Humor me,” he replied lightly as he turned and made his way through the snow. She hardly weighed anything at all. Grand-mère was such a forceful personality that sometimes he forgot how frail she really was. “Every now and again I enjoy a bit of physical labor just to remind myself that I’m not quite a fop yet.”
Miss St. John held open the door to Hedge House as they neared.
She bestowed a sweet smile on his grandmother, all but ignoring Adam. “Welcome to Hedge House, my lady. We’ve prepared a room for you with a fire, and I’ve asked for tea to be brought to your room.”
“Thank you,” Grand-mère said, and then had to stop to cough. “I don’t suppose you have any brandy as well?”
Miss St. John didn’t even blink. “Of course. I’ll send for some.” She nodded to a hovering footman and then turned to lead them up the stairs.
“Really, Adam, you can set me down now,” Grand-mère growled.
“Nonsense,” he replied. “Miss St. John already thinks me a feckless rake. Were she to see me abandon you in the hallway she would lose what little respect she might still have for me.”
The lady ahead of them didn’t bother turning, but he heard a faint “Humph.”
He grinned, watching the sway of her skirts as she climbed the steps.
When he glanced back at his grandmother she was eyeing him thoughtfully. “You and Miss St. John have met before?”
“Only once,” the lady called back.
“Yes, but even that once was enough for her to set me down,” Adam said cheerfully, and then, in a loud whisper to his grandmother, “I have the feeling she doesn’t like me.”
Miss St. John made the upper level and shot a scornful glance at him over her shoulder as she turned down a hall.
Grand-mère hummed. “How unusual. Most ladies fall at your feet.”
“Indeed they do,” Adam replied without a trace of modesty. “I begin to think that Miss St. John simply does not like men.”
“Not at all,” the lady in question said sweetly. She’d paused in front of a door and she gestured him inside. “I am quite fond of most gentlemen.”
Adam found himself perilously close to losing his temper with the little virago.
Which was ridiculous. He’d traded far more cutting barbs with other ladies. There was just something about Miss St. John that made him feel savage.
Not that he was about to let her know that.
“Gentlemen in their eighth decade, no doubt,” he murmured as he edged past her with Grand-mère in his arms. He shot Miss St. John an easy, guileless smile. “I do understand. A lady such as yourself might find any younger gentleman too fearsome.”
He turned before he could see her reaction, but he rather thought his volley had hit by her indrawn breath.
“A lady such as myself?” she asked with terrible calm.
Oh, yes indeed, he’d gone over the walls with that last one. Adam lowered Grand-mère to the bed before glancing up at his feminine adversary. “A lady of…” He paused delicately. “A certain age.” Adam widened his eyes innocently. “That is why you’re not wed, yes? Because you’re, what? Two and thirty?”
“Seven and twenty,” she bit out. “And I can’t believe you’re so concerned about my age when you’re older than I.”
“Ah, but I’m a man,” he replied, “And but five and thirty. A mere youth relatively.”
A blush had risen in her cheeks—no doubt a sign of ire rather than embarrassment—and he couldn’t help but note how ravishing it made her look. Her light-brown eyes were wide and nearly shooting flames at him, her head thrown back, her soft red lips parted in outrage…
Well.
He wondered if this was how she might look in the throes of passion.
The thought went straight to his groin. He might not particularly like Miss St. John, but he couldn’t deny her allure.
Even if he suspected she was quite unaware of it herself.
He cursed under his breath, glancing away, just as Grand-mère spoke.
“I wonder…” She paused to cough and his attention was immediately on her. Grand-mère’s hand shook as she raised a handkerchief to her lips, the huge sapphire ring on her left hand winking in the candlelight. “I wonder if I might have that tea now. And perhaps the brandy as well.”
Her voice sounded thin and frail.
Adam’s brows snapped together. “Of course, darling. Let me help you out of your cloak so that you can rest.”
He glanced up to see that Miss St. John was already pouring a dish of tea from the teapot sitting on a nearby table.
He bent over his grandmother, helping her to remove her cloak and shoes. Cannon, her lady’s maid, should be up soon. The maid was nearly as old as her mistress and had been with Grand-mère since her marriage. They were fiercely loyal to each other, and Grand-mère would not hear of acquiring a younger lady’s maid.
Even if that meant waiting on the elderly maid climbing the stairs.
“Here,” Miss St. John murmured.
He looked up to find her at his elbow, holding the dish of tea. Her brows were drawn together, and when she met his gaze, her eyes held concern. “Dr. Christopher Manning is one of our guests for Christmas. He’s a friend of Godric’s and quite a good physician. Perhaps I might have him attend Lady Whimple?”
“Thank you,” he replied, truly grateful.
She turned and quickly left the room.
Adam picked up his grandmother’s hand and chafed her cold fingers between his hands, absently noting that her sapphire ring was loose on her finger. She’d lost weight. “I know that you don’t like doctors, but perhaps a quick look before you undress for bed.”
“If you think it a good idea,” she replied in a wan voice so unlike her usual brisk tones that he felt his heart sink in fear.
“I do,” he replied, careful to not let any of his apprehension show.
“That gel, Miss St. John…” She paused to cough again. “I rather like her.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Because she hates me?”
Grand-mère ignored that. “She challenges you. She isn’t won over by your charm.”
He winced, remembering Miss St. John’s thrown-back head. Her fiery eyes as she set him down. Odd that she should arouse him so. “Yes, and I find her bellicosity the most irritating thing imaginable.”
Grand-mère watched him with eyes that had always been much too perceptive. “Do you?”
Sarah hurried to the ivy sitting room, where the house party had assembled after dinner. Lord d’Arque had worn a small wrinkle between his brows when she’d left his grandmother’s room. For such an urbane man—one skilled in hiding his true feelings—that wrinkle had been like a horn blaring his worry for Lady Whimple. The viscount was a vain, bold man like all rakes, but she found his devotion to his grandmother rather…sweet. Had it been any other man, she might even go so far as to call it endearing.
She shook her head. This was Lord d’Arque, one of the most notorious roués in London, a man known for his seduction of women. Endearing was the very last epithet one would choose for him—and she must remember that.
With that thought Sarah opened the door to the sitting room.
Inside, the party was gathered around her mother, Clara St. John, and Godric, who appeared to be delivering a summary of his journey with Lord d’Arque to the wrecked carriage.
Everyone looked at her when she entered.
“Oh, Sarah,” Mama said, “how is Lady Whimple? It’s such a cold night for an elderly lady to be out.”
“I’m afraid not well,” Sarah replied. She looked at Dr. Manning, a handsome man of eight-and-twenty with cheerful blue eyes and a broad, open face. He eschewed the bobbed wig worn by most of his profession and instead pulled his ginger hair into a simple queue. “Will you come, Dr. Manning?”
“Of course.” He set aside his teacup and rose at once. “I’ll need to go to my room to fetch my bag.”
Sarah nodded, turning toward the door with the doctor immediately behind her.
“I believe Mama put you in the blue room?” she asked when they’d made the hall.
“Yes.” He grimaced. “An unfortunate business, this, Viscount d’Arque’s carriage going off the road.”
She glanced at him curiously as they mounted the stairs to the next floor. “You sound as if you know Lord d’Arque?”
“Not as such,” Doctor Manning replied. “I…er…have heard of him, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Sarah murmured.
Dr. Manning cleared his throat, darting a glance at her. “I doubt a lady such as yourself would know of his reputation, but he’s rather notorious.”
“Ah,” Sarah said noncommittally.
It was sweet that Dr. Manning thought that ladies didn’t gossip about such things.
She waited outside his room as the doctor retrieved his bag, and then led him around a corner to the east wing.
They came to Lady Whimple’s room, and Sarah knocked lightly before opening the door.
Inside, Lord d’Arque was just rising from where he’d been perched beside his grandmother on the bed.
“My lady, my lord,” Sarah said, “This is Dr. Christopher Manning, late of Oxford. Dr. Manning, Lady Whimple and her grandson, Viscount d’Arque.”
Dr. Manning bowed, looking quite competent and dashing with his professional bag and serious air.
In contrast, Lord d’Arque seemed an indolent aristocrat as he strolled forward to shake the other man’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Doctor.”
The viscount’s saturnine good looks differed sharply from the doctor’s boyish fair complexion and hair.
“Not at all,” Dr. Manning said. “I’ll need a moment alone with Lady Whimple, if you don’t mind. Her lady’s maid may stay, of course.” He nodded to the elderly maid sitting on a chair on the other side of the bed.
“If that meets with your approval, Grand-mère?” Lord d’Arque asked his grandmother.
“Yes, yes,” she replied, waving her hand at her grandson in a shooing motion. “Go and have some tea…or more likely brandy.”
The viscount smirked as he bowed to the old lady. “As you wish.”
He ushered Sarah out of the room and then paused, staring back at the door with a small frown.
He looked so worried.
She cleared her throat a little awkwardly. “We do have tea and brandy in the sitting room, my lord. I find tea can be quite refreshing to the spirits.”
Lord d’Arque turned at her words, a cynical smile immediately replacing his frown. “Sympathy for the devil, Miss St. John? How easily you are won over by a bit of melancholy.”
Sarah stiffened, reminded once again why she disliked this man.
“If you’ll come with me,” she replied, turning without waiting for him.
He made a tsking sound, easily catching up to her with his long legs. “Now, now. Don’t be that way. I’ve a secret fondness for tea myself. Drink gallons of the stuff, I assure you, usually after a vigorous romp with some lovely lady.”
“Must you be so vile?” The words burst from her mouth quite without her volition.
There was a short silence as they came to the stairs.
Then he spoke, his voice lower, though still as mocking. “Oh, I think so. Feminine flesh and debauchery are my bread and water—without them I wither and die. If you wish for gentleness and chivalry, apply to your Dr. Manning instead.”
Sarah found herself at a near run now, her fury lending speed to her descent. It was no wonder, then, that she caught her heel on one of the treads.
For a moment she felt the sickening swoop of her stomach and the sure knowledge that she was about to fall headlong down the stairs.
Then a strong arm wound around her waist and jerked her close to a hard chest.
She breathed deeply, feeling his heat behind her, his legs against her bottom.
“Careful, sweetheart,” he rasped in her ear, his breath brushing her neck, and it was strange because she could’ve sworn there was real concern in his voice. “You nearly fell at my feet just then.”