Clomp-clomp-clomp.
The steady beat of the viscount’s footfalls abruptly stopped. The floorboard groaned. “Daria, forgive me.”
“There is no need to apologize, Clayton,” Daria said softly, forgivingly.
Argyll frowned. There it was again. An unexpected warmth and softness to his bride’s affect and tones. Granted, he requiredneither from his wife, but she managed them for others and couldn’t for Argyll’s charming self. His lips dipped into a deeper frown. Not that he’d gone overly out of his way to do so, but the times he had…
The deep, heavy breath St. John drew reached all the way outside. “No, Daria. You are all that is good and pure a-and…”
St. John’s voice broke.
Argyll recoiled. Good God, was the man about to…cry?
He eyed the nearest exit.
“I’ll bloody kill him.”
That took a fast turn.
Argyll ought to have welcomed the pathetic display of weakness from St. John.
“That cunning, utterly unscrupulous, lecherous, libidinous…” With every slander hurled, Lord St. John’s voice grew louder. “Wretched, degraded, villainous pig-widgeon.”
Argyll’s brows lifted. That wasquitethe lengthy cut upon his character.
“Buffle-headed, sappy, chuckle-headed.”
Oof. The fellow wasn’t finished.
“Scapegrace, raffish,”
Not even near close.
“Swag-bellied badgers.”
Argyll glanced at his very flat stomach and frowned.
Well, I never.
“Idon’t think you’re swag-bellied either.”
Christ! Argyll’s gaze shot to his silent visitor.
A tiny, dark-haired girl stared back with big, dark eyes. Getting sneaked upon by mere children. God rot him.
The tiny girl hopped up onto the seat beside him. “You’re on the ‘in-trouble’ bench.”
Ah, now the butler’s insistence Argyll take the seat made sense.
“Spend a lot of time here, do you?”
“A fair amount.”
Shocking.
His lips quirked in a droll half-smile.
“One of the sisters, I take it,” he drawled.
