He’d expected an explosion of wrath, but to his surprise, Miss Greenaway bubbled with mirth.
“I dare say I must seem idiotic to you, but I was desperate. Have you never done anything out of the way?”
Taken aback, Alex thought for a moment. “Afraid I haven’t. Been a dull dog all my life. By Gad, I never realised it before!”
Her smile warmed him. “Then you should be grateful to me for bringing adventure into your life.”
He laughed. “Perhaps I will be.”
She drank her coffee, regarding him over the rim of her cup in a way Alex found singularly unnerving. She surprised him yet again.
“Your people must be quite gothic in their ways. Or else very strict. Are they?”
Alex’s mind went to his mother. Lady Luthrie’s had been the guiding hand throughout his life. He lived by her maxims rather than his father’s. Strict? Forthright rather. Made her wishes known and expected them to be met. Alex had learned it was preferable to fall in with them than engage in the sort of wrangle that ensued when he rebelled.
“Could say my mother’s controlling, if you like. My father keeps his attention on running the estates. That and his dratted exotic plants.”
Her eyes had widened. “Estates? Who are you?”
“Told you. I’m Dymond.”
“Yes, but if there are estates, you must be someone important.”
He let out a snorting laugh. “Hardly. My father’s a peer.”
“That’s why your groom called you ‘my lord’.”
“Ah, you noticed that?”
“Of course I did. What sort of peer?”
“Don’t be inquisitive.”
Miss Greenaway did not appear to be in the least crushed by this snub. She was eyeing him with new interest, as if she was turning something over in her mind. Alarm gripped him. What the deuce was she scheming now?
“If you’ve any notion of embroiling me any further in your wretched plots, my girl, let me tell you here and now that I won’t be party to any nonsense.”
She gave him a look compound of innocence and astonishment. “Why in the world should you imagine I want to embroil you?”
“You look as if you’re plotting, that’s why.”
“I am not.” She hesitated, taking another sip of her coffee. Then she set down the cup and gave him a bright smile. “I was only thinking that if you are usefully high in the peerage, Mr Vergette might be more inclined to listen to you.”
Ignoring most of this speech, Alex fixed upon the nub. “Usefully high? How high is useful? And I’ll thank you not to start imagining I’m a soft touch, because I ain’t.”
“But you said you would go and see the lawyer on my behalf.”
“Yes, but I’d no notion of pulling rank on the fellow.”
“Well, you must tell him who you are, must you not?”
“Yes, but I’m not in the habit of puffing off my father’s earldom in hopes of securing an advantage. What do you take me for? Ain’t the thing at all.”
Miss Greenaway’s big eyes gazed at him with a hint of the plea she’d adopted at the first. But her voice remained steady. “Well, but only a moment ago you were deploring your dullness. If you insist upon only doing what is the thing, you will never shake off your shackles.”
“Shackles?” Alex did not know whether to give in to exasperation or laughter. “You conniving little devil! I’ve a good mind to wash my hands of you.”
The light in her eyes dimmed a trifle, and Alex felt an impulse to retract.
