The commanding bluestocking’s polemical pastime had some benefits.
“Now, Daria. Are you saying you want tomarrythe Duke of Argyll?” Lady St. John said gently. “If so, I strongly advise against that.”
Clever woman there.
“Oh, no. I didn’t want to marry him.”
Argyll ceased his drumming.
Fuck.
“You. Did. Not. Want to marry him?” A fresh thread of panic had found its way into the dowager viscountess’s voice.
“No,” Daria confirmed, almost cheerfully.
Nowshe’s cheerful. Here he’d taken her as largely a blank canvas of undefined emotion.
A sudden throbbing hit the center of his forehead and he rubbed a fist against the fast-growing ache.
“I had to, Clayton,” she explained.
Oh, Christ.
“Youhadto?”
“Yes.”
Argyll closed his eyes. His vexing bride couldn’t detect a rhetorical question had it been handed to her in a basket.
Glass shattered.
He was beginning to believe one of his many enemies sent her after all, with this very intent. What a diabolical plot it would be. Send him a virgin in black. Convince him to marry. Thendrag him before her Argyll-hating family to meet his end. And Argyll would deserve it for having somehow agreed to her mad proposal.
Yes, his moniker for her, Little Raven, proved apropos for the chit was about to get him killed.
“You needn’t be angry, Clayton.”
Brother—and bridegroom—waited for Daria to finish the rest of that with some solid reasons.
When St. John erupted for a third time, Argyll gave up any hope of some sound, justifiable rationale and helped himself to the wood seat St. John’s adamant butler earlier insisted he take.
“I needn’t be angry, Daria!” St. John raged. “I am bloodyincensed.”
Argyll did a cursory study of the monk’s bench and the shaped oak arms beneath his palms. A piece made for prayer.
Fitting.
Hell, at this point, he’d rather she just swiftly get onto the curse and dying business.
“Are you mad?”
Argyll perked up. At last, something he and the irate brother agreed on.
Viscountess and dowager viscountess scolded St John at the same time. “Clayton.”
Finally, the other ladies in the room would air their voices.
“That is unkind, Clayton,” Lady St. John was saying. “Do not speak so of your sister.”
