She cradled the injured cartilage.
“Good God,” he croaked. “I’m…”
“Not so very good at this?” she asked into her hand. Merry continued to venture completions to that unfinished statement. “Sorry? Usually not known for assaulting or threatening assault?”
“All of the above apply.” Luke tugged at his cravat until the previously immaculate knot hung in hopeless disrepair.
They remained locked in a silent battle. She, tensed. He, with his features relaxed in casual amusement.
The blighter. He was so very determined to join her, and by the firm set to his shoulders, he’d no intention of leaving.
But why?
Why was he so very adamant about joining her? Why, when she had no desire for his help?
Because there had to be some reason.
Which brought with it only more and more questions. Questions she was determined to get to the bottom of so she could end this unwilling fascination with him.
“Very well,” she allowed. “I’ll accept your help.” For now. But there were two certainties: She’d have her answers, and after she had them, well, he’d last not at all in his role.
And then she could resume organizing the holiday gathering.
“Fetch your cloak.”
“My—?”
She gave him a look that silenced the remainder of his question. “Meet me in the foyer in twenty minutes, my lord.”
With that, Merry mentally adjusted her plans for the day.
Chapter Five
Merry had been clear at every turn that she’d no wish for his company.
She’d apparently tired of protesting and instead intended to off him.
There was no other accounting for the gleaming saw she held in hand.
Just then, she brought the serrated blade up and made a slashing motion through the air, and for one instant, Luke, halfway down the winding stairway, contemplated surrendering the battle.
Alas, Merry made the decision for him.
As she whipped around, her skirts snapped loudly about her ankles. “Shall we?”
Did he imagine that she lifted her saw and pointed it in his direction for an overlong beat before turning and starting at a determined clip for the front door?
The butler, Blake, emerged from the shadows and drew the panel open.
Wind gusted through the front door with a blast of cold. She was mad. “We are going out in this?” He hastened his steps to catch her.
“I am going out in this,” she called, her voice carrying in the winter quiet, made all the louder by the dearth of life in London at the holiday season.
He hurried to pull on his gloves. The leather articles, however, did little to chase away the chill, and in a bid to bring some warmth to his freezing digits, he rubbed his palms quickly together.
From out of the corner of his eye, he caught the sideways peek Merry stole in his direction, and he forced his arms back to his sides.
Why… why… the chit hadn’t anticipated he’d accompany her. She’d expected he’d find the frigid temperatures and the threat of snow hanging in the early morn sky reason enough to return to the comforts of his familial residence and set himself up with a paper and a glass of brandy to warm him.
And in any one of the thirty-four years before this, Merry would have been correct in her postulation.
But that had been before he’d gone and made a mess of his life and his happiness. Now, he didn’t give a jot for propriety. “I’ll hand it to you, Merry Read,” he said as they locked in a matched pace to whatever destination she’d planned. “You are nothing if not determined and tenacious.”
She smiled. “Th-thank you.” Her voice trembled slightly from the cold.
“I didn’t intend it as a compliment.”
“Well, it w-would be hard to take it any other way. What is the al-alternative? That I’m indecisive and given to vacillating?” She gesticulated wildly with her saw as she spoke, and he ducked sideways as that gleaming metal came entirely too close to his left arm.
“Well, I have no intention of leaving.”
“Hmph,” she muttered, her huff of annoyance stirring a little cloud of white.
Unfortunately, the pair of young footmen following close at their heels also had little intention of leaving.
And he didn’t know why their presence should so annoy him.
Liar. You know. You know very well. The last thing he’d anticipated or wanted was to share his and Merry’s outing with anyone, particularly gossiping servants. Quite simply, he found himself enjoying her company, and her barbs, and challenges, when he hadn’t enjoyed… well, really anything since he’d tried to repair his relationship with Josephine Pratt.
Only, the pain that usually came from the memory of his folly and her and what could have been… didn’t come.
“You’ve not said where we’re going,” he noted as they moved at the steady clip Merry set through the streets of Mayfair.
“Because you’ve only just asked. Green Park,” she said, continuing to swing her arm as they walked.
“Here.” Luke reached for her saw. “Let me carry that.”
Merry’s steps slowed, and there was a softening in her eyes.
“It is mostly an act of self-preservation.” He immediately wished to call back that admission, for just like that, he’d quashed all the previous warmth in her eyes.
With a roll of her eyes, Merry held out the saw. “You’re in-s-sufferable.”
“I’d wager that’s not the first time that charge has been leveled at me,” he conceded, raising the edge of the blade to his brow in mock salute.
A sharp bark of laughter escaped from her, the expression of mirth tinkling and bell-like. “Have a care, or you’re going to c-cut yourself.”
“Ah, so that was not your intention, then?”
She laughed again.
He’d never been responsible for another person’s mirth. Not like this. Not free and unrestrained and fulsome and sincere. Even with his former betrothed, their exchanges had been restrained. The lone embrace they’d shared had been equally restrained. Now, he found himself wondering what it would be like to take Merry Read in his arms.
No doubt she’d be a woman who kissed and made love with the same abandon she showed at their every interaction. And through the cold of the morn came heat that spiraled through him, a desire to discover those truths for himself.
“I don’t recall you like th-this,” she said as they entered Green Park, and for one horrifying moment, he believed she’d seen the wicked path his thoughts had traveled, thoughts that included her and him, together.
“And how is that?” Unnerved by how much Merry Read’s opinion meant to him, he kept his gaze trained carefully forward.
“Teasing. Lighthearted. Cheerful.”
They reached the entrance of Green Park, and he was grateful when she looked to the footmen who’d reached their sides. She favored the pair with a smile. “Here you are.” Reaching into the pocket sewn along the front of her cloak, she withdrew two small sacks and placed them in their hands. “Some flat chocolate discs covered with nonpareils,” she whispered. “I snuck some from my mother’s kitchens before I came to London.”