Chapter 7 #2
The words had tumbled out of his mouth before they could be stopped by his prattling, idle brain.
Anne, Emily, and Tabitha exchanged a merry grin, and before he could say something else, a quite large hand slammed down on his shoulder.
“I’m Brodie, and we are pleased to make your acquaintance.
We’ll save you before you put your foot in it anymore, lad, unless, of course, you wish to be married this Christmas. ”
“Why does everyone assume that marriage will happen at Christmas?” Oliver asked no one in particular.
“Because it’s the jolliest time of year,” one of the other large men said. “I’m Leith. Now, we are glad to hear that you’re not going to displease our sweethearts.”
“We would have hated to have to convince you more thoroughly later,” said Brodie.
Oliver gazed at Brodie, then at Leith, and then at the gentleman who had insisted that they wouldn’t do for the Pirate King. “I’m Archie,” the gentleman said. “You, sir, have saved us.”
“You are in for it, old boy,” declared Brodie. “So you might as well just give in and enjoy it.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he replied honestly.
Lady Phoebe poked him in the side, and he bit back a yelp before he turned to her and asked, “What was that for?”
“You keep insinuating that spending time with me is terrible.”
“I don’t mean to,” he said.
“And yet you do.”
“Perhaps it’s habit,” he said. “I don’t really know how to enjoy myself.”
“What a confession,” she exclaimed. “I suppose that is the beginning.”
The three Scots, the ladies, and the dance teacher watched them with growing interest.
“Beginning of what?” he asked out of the side of the mouth, vowing to murder Laertes later in as creative a way as he could come up with.
“The beginning of your conversion,” she said brightly.
“Conversion into what?” he demanded.
Phoebe pursed her lips and waved at the Scots, her cousins, and Monsieur Georges. “Off you go. Not everything in the Briarwood house is a show.”
“I disagree,” countered Emily.
Anne grabbed her cousin’s elbow. “Let the drama unfold naturally,” she whispered sotto voce.
“Indeed,” agreed Tabitha. “We mustn’t interfere with the plot.”
They grabbed their three gents’ hands and headed off.
Monsieur Georges remained for a moment. “Ah. Amour. It is the perfect time of year for it!”
Then he bounded off with remarkable grace and far too much enthusiasm.
“Just what are you hoping for?” he asked once they were relatively alone and he no longer had to pretend.
“That you just might be a man who will like Christmas and dancing one day.”
He drew in a long breath, then said softly, without malice, without anger, and without cruelty, “Phoebe, I must divest you of any hopes on that score. I will never like Christmas, and I will never like dancing, but I like you.”
She let out a long sigh and gazed up at him, his words apparently falling on deaf ears. “Stubbornness should not be a quality to which I am drawn, but it seems that I am. Frustrating creature that I must be.”
“You are not frustrating,” he bit out.
“What am I then?”
“Tempting.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said, leaning in, but then she pivoted, took up her cup of hot chocolate, and downed a good gulp. “Now, rehearsal approaches. You need to eat some toast, and then you should change.”
He looked down, recalling Monsieur Georges’ instructions. But surely he wasn’t serious. “Change into what?”
“Something more comfortable,” she replied, putting her cup and saucer back down on the table. “As was said.”
“I don’t have anything more comfortable. Dukes don’t dress comfortably,” he replied.
Then she looked about the room, clearly undaunted. “Ajax,” she called.
An immense, Herculean man, who was just about his size, turned towards them, his silvery blonde hair shining in the morning light. “Yes, darling girl?” he called.
“I am in need of a set of clothes from your closet.”
Ajax quirked a brow. “You, my darling? You’ll swim in them. Surely one of your younger cousins could give you a good boy’s costume if it’s for the play.”
“It’s not for me,” she said, bouncing and folding her hands behind her. “It’s for him.”
Ajax swung his gaze to Oliver and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. “Who’s he when he’s at home?”
“The Duke of Crestfield,” she said.
Lord Ajax Briarwood closed the distance between them, looked him up and down, and said, “Right, I’ll find you something.”
“It’s not necessary,” Oliver countered.
“If Phoebe says it’s necessary, it is. Come along with me, puppy, and we’ll get you sorted.”
Puppy? He was the Duke of Crestfield.
“I don’t think I need to be sorted.”
“You do,” Ajax said indulgently, clearly growing more and more amused by the moment. “You absolutely do.”
And with that, he was all but dragged from the room. He turned, giving Phoebe a desperate glance, but she just waved her fingers at him as if she had achieved some great victory already and was sending him off to the next stage of her hoped-for conversion.
Ajax towed him up the stairs quickly. “You are in for it, you know.”
“What?” he asked.
“Phoebe. She gets what she wants, and she does it in a very artful way.”
“Why is that such a terrible thing?” he asked.
“Because she wants you,” Ajax declared, his voice deep, booming, and intense. “And if you are not ready for this family, you might as well hie off now.”
He couldn’t hie off. He didn’t welch on lost bets. And there was another thing. Oliver squared his shoulders and said firmly, “I like her very much.”
“It’s obvious,” Ajax replied evenly. “I have excellent ears. You don’t want to dance, but you agreed to it for her. So, clearly you do like her, and you are willing to do ridiculous things to please her, which tells me you hope to bed her.”
Oliver choked. “I beg your pardon.”
Ajax clapped him on the back. “Don’t die. There’s too much to be done to arrange a funeral just now.”
He coughed again. The man’s hand was like a hammer.
Ajax gave him a jaunty grin, but there was a hint of danger to it.
“No need to be delicate about it, my boy. This family is very open, and while she might be my niece, she wouldn’t be the first young lady who did exciting things before the wedding banns or the wedding bells.
” Ajax’s smile grew a touch more frightening, dripping with a promise.
A promise of consequences. Not for her, but for him.
“But just know this, any harm done to her spirit? Well that will be taken as something far greater than any sort of intimacy between you. We won’t care if you play a bit of a bed game.
That’s the way our family does things. Life should be enjoyed, and none of us are prudes here.
As long as no one is hurt, no one is harmed, and no one has any tears, you’ll leave this place with all your limbs intact. Do you see?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
Ajax clapped him on the back again. “Don’t worry. You will.”