Chapter Two #3
“You have the disposition of a shrew, my lady,” he riposted. “Do but continue along the same lines and you may yet win me.”
Both ladies laughed merrily. Naomi said, “No, Trina is right. I must not tease you, for truly I am very glad to see you both. So glad in fact, that I mean to kidnap you away to Collington and will hear no arguments, sirrah, so you had as lief say yes at once!”
“No. And do not be giving yourself airs. You may be the most talked-about heiress in London Town, but you’re still a grubby little brat to me! And your conversation when I came up just now, was improper in the extreme. Such a way to speak of your father!”
She sipped her tea, watching him over the brim of her cup, then said lightly, “Since you so admire him, you will want to come and see the great man.”
“Nothing of the kind,” he contradicted rudely, spreading strawberry jam with a lavish hand. “And I think the earl will thank us for not desecrating his doorstep.”
Naomi saw Katrina flinch at this, and said frowningly, “I think you have never been turned away from Collington.”
“So long as your father was profitably engaged with mine, no.” He glanced at her from under his lashes. “The great god Mammon can render anyone acceptable.”
“Now you are being horrid, August!”
“Aha! Then you believe he would approve an I asked for your hand?” His lip curled. “I wish I may see it! He would prefer even poor Rossiter, be damned if he wouldn’t! And much as you profess to adore me, my poppet, I find it unlikely you would be willing to be known as Mrs. Mandarin.”
Katrina gave a gasp and turned her face away.
Flushed with anger, Naomi flared, “I do not adore you, August Falcon! And heaven help the lady who loves you enough to spend the rest of her life enduring your nasty cynicism! But one might think that after all these years you would know me better than to think me guilty of such—such—”
“Such typical British aristocratic prejudices? Why not? You’re an Englishwoman and an aristocrat, and fairly brimming with hoity-toityness.”
Between her teeth she hissed, “An I did love you, wretched creature, nothing or no one would stop me from accepting your offer!”
“You may be grateful my girl,” he waved his scone at her, “that nothing would induce me to put your resolution to the test.”
“Beast!” exclaimed Naomi.
“No, but that is prodigious unkind, August,” said Katrina, troubled.
He smiled, and sketched a careless bow.
Naomi glared at him. “You are too provoking, August. You have made me cross, and I vowed I would not be so again today!”
“So much for resolution. Personally, I never make vows, then I am spared the anguish of breaking them. One always does, you know.”
Ignoring this confidence, she asked after a moment, “Why do you name him ‘poor’ Rossiter? Are you acquaint?”
“Not—I thank heaven—since he was a quarrelsome and pushing brat at Eton. I had nothing to do with him. He cut no great swath in academia as I recollect.”
“Whereas your achievements will live on forever, I collect.”
“An you doubt it, m’dear, ask him.” He smiled at her with lazy mockery. “The next time you are—er, tête-à-tête, as it were … Rossiter detests me, but being a jolly good sportsman, I feel sure he will with true nobility verify the brilliance of my record. How do you go on, Roger?”
Roger Coachman approached the table, touched his hat respectfully to the Falcons, said he was very well thank you, and advised my lady that the horses were rested and it would soon grow dark.
“There is no need for your horses,” said Falcon with a glance at the window and the lowering skies. “You will rack up here for the night. You may share Trina’s room, Naomi.”
Quite out of patience with him, Naomi said dryly, “Your generosity is beyond peer, but I shall do no such thing. I had far rather be comfortable in my own bed than risk fleas and damp sheets in this shabby little hovel!”
Falcon put up his quizzing glass and regarded her through it. “Ruffled your feathers, did I?” he drawled.
“Yes. Precisely as you intended.” She took his arm then, and levelled her enchanting smile at him.
“Now, you have had a lovely time teasing me, so you may be done with being such a great grump, dear August. Come back to Collington. Or at least permit Katrina to visit me for a little time. We’ve not had a proper cose in an age, and have so much to talk about. ”
Her cajolery did not prevail. He had, he said, not the least doubt that the two ladies “could gossip for a month if given the opportunity,” but he would neither visit Collington, nor allow his sister to go there.
He agreed with her ladyship when she argued that it had been his intention to take Katrina to Collington, but said blandly that there was not now the need to do so since they had met here.
“Further,” he went on, “although I make no doubt I am as unamiable as you have declared (with a sad want of manners, I might add), had you the wit of a wardrobe you would overnight here rather than travel through a countryside swarming with rank riders, and plaguely damp. Especially since these clouds will bring an early dusk, and ’twill likely be full dark before you reach home.
Always supposing,” he appended as a final touch, “another wheel does not drop off en route.”
Katrina gave a little cry of dismay.
Her inner apprehension deepened by the concurring nod of Roger Coachman, Naomi tossed her curls and said defiantly, “La, sir! But how charming you are not! I vow you make me shake in my slippers. I doubt there is a single highwayman from here to—to Tooting!”
Falcon reached for another scone. “Should you object to a married one? What an odd requirement. Their marital state interests me not at all.”
Naomi’s dimples flickered in appreciation of this sally, but Katrina cried, “August, pray do not jest! Do you really suppose they might be held up? Lud, Naomi, you must stay here!”
“I shall stay long enough to chat with you, after your disobliging brother has been so good as to take himself off,” said Naomi. “Then I shall wend my lonely and forsaken way back to my despised home.”
Falcon shrugged. “Upon your own head be it, wilful chit.”
Genuinely worried, Katrina said, “I had not so much as thought of highwaymen, but if you persist in travelling on, Naomi, you must leave at once! Is there a guard on your coach? August, belike you should ride escort, dearest?”
“The devil I will!” exclaimed Mr. Falcon.