Summerset ignored that. “Winnifred. Do you suppose she goes by Winnie?” He huffed out a breath. “Good Gad, you’ll be Sinnie and Winnie. How nauseating.”
“No one will call us Sinnie and Winnie.” He glared at his friend. “Not if he wants his tongue to remain in his mouth.”
Summerset closed his eyes. “I’m sorry we didn’t leave the rout when you wanted. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t forced you to stay.”
Sin snorted. His friend was tall, but Sin still had several inches on him and probably double the bulk. “Youcannot force me to do anything I don’t wish.” He fingered the auburn tail of his queue. Perhaps he should have cut his hair to fashion for his wedding.
“Damn it, Sin. This isn’t the time for jokes.” Summerset kicked a chair, the emeralds on his heeled-boots glimmering in the sunlight slanting through the window. “Marriage is for life.”
Sin went to his friend and laid a hand on his shoulder. “John, it had to happen sometime. Unlike some other poor sops, I don’t need to marry for money. It might as well be to Miss Hannon. She seems as tolerable as anyone else.” Tolerable, and puzzling. The two of them had only met once more before this rushed affair, in the presence of her disappointed father. The woman seemed to take the forced marriage in stride, giving no further hints of distress. No hints of any emotion. Perhaps she was as practical as he. A wedding would have been in her near future if she didn’t want to be on the shelf. Marriage to a marquess would be considered a success.
His friend’s shoulder was hard as a rock under his hand. “How do you know this wasn’t a trap on her part. A marquess is quite the coup for the daughter of a botanist, even one who used to be under the tutelage of the Royal gardener and has befriended some of the ton. If she arranged her own disgrace, you cannot reward her with marriage.”
Sin arched an eyebrow. “She was in the cellar before me. Do you think she ensconced herself among the wine bottles hoping someone with a title would wander down for a drink?”
“Perhaps she overheard us complaining of the wine….”
“And predicted that I would enter the cellar to pilfer my own bottle, racing ahead of me to get there first?” Sin shook his head. “Truly, your censure is unjustified. The woman is blameless in this. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances; one I must make the best of.”
Summerset kicked a cabinet, his heel making a half-moon crescent in the soft wood. “She’s dull, as tedious and flat as her dish-water hair. And she showed no emotion over this marriage whatsoever. She was … disinterested. Cold. It will be like bedding a very large icicle.”
“How would you know she’s dull?”
“You forget, while you were making arrangements with her father, I sat with the girl. She didn’t ask about her future husband or question me about Kenmore Castle. One would think a girl would be curious about her new home. She spoke only of her father’s experiments and the practicalities of travel to Scotland.”
Sin considered. She hadn’t seemed dull in the cellar. A bit queer, perhaps, but he’d found her slightly inebriated discussion charming.
“I don’t give a toss about a woman’s hair color,” he told Summerset. “And you know I prefer tall women.” And as for being bored in bed … He grunted and pushed that disturbing thought away. He’d blow up that bridge if and when he came to it.
Summerset waved him away. “Yes, yes, you’re scared of crushing a Pocket Venus, I know. But this is—”
“Enough. It’s done.” Sin turned back to the mirror and smoothed the end of his cravat under his waistcoat. “At least my mother will be happy. She’s been trying to marry me off for years.”
“She’ll have your ballocks for marrying without her in attendance.” Summerset heaved a sigh. “Perhaps you can yet delay the wedding. Say you want your family and friends to attend. We can figure something out.”
“No delays.”
A knock sounded at the door and a lined-faced topped with grey hair popped through the opening. “Gentlemen,” Liverpool said as he slipped through and shut the door behind him. “This was truly the last place I expected to find you.”
Summerset scowled. “Where the devil were you two weeks ago? If you’d met us at Stamworth’s party, as you’d requested, none of this would have bloody happened.”
The prime minister drew his bushy grey eyebrows together. “I had urgent business in Algiers.” Only those close to him would hear the steel warning underlying his words. “Now I’ve returned.” He nodded at Sin. “Are you going on a bridal tour?”
Sin shook his head. “No. I think it best to introduce my bride to her new home. We’ll be traveling to my estate in Scotland directly after the luncheon.”
Liverpool clapped his hands together. “Then my timing is perfect. There have been rumblings of discontent from our brothers in the North that are beginning to worry me. I’d like you to investigate, see if there is anything England needs to be concerned over.”
Summerset planted his hands on his hips. “Bridal tour or no, he will be a newly married man. You can’t expect him to forgo his honeymoon.”
Sin barely restrained his eyeroll. Even with such fervent objections to Sin’s marriage, Summerset would still expect him to spend all of his time bedding his new wife.
He brushed a fleck of lint from his arm. “I’m sure your concerns are unjustified. The Scottish are always angry with our southern neighbors.” And with good reason. Ever since the Treaty of Union a hundred years ago, the English had been treating their “brothers” with anything but brotherly love. Scotland’s wealth and power seemed to flow south in a never-ending river of enforced tribute.
“I’d like you to look into it just the same.” Liverpool tucked his thumb between two buttons on his waistcoat and scratched his rounded belly with his fingers. “We can’t afford another rebellion. As one of only sixteen Scottish representatives in the House of Lords, one would hope you’d be interested in helping to maintain the peace between our two lands.”
Sin bowed his head. According to the letters from his steward and his mother, his peoplewerea bit tetchy. The crops were doing poorly this year and their discontent was to be expected. But if Liverpool wanted a report on each and every bellyache, he’d give it to him.
Any work for the Crown would be preferable to the drudgery of managing his estate.
