At that moment a servant stumbled into the room, breathing hard and looking as if he’d just fallen out of bed. “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” he asked in a rush, then stopped and looked at Joan in bewilderment. “And miss,” he added uncertainly.
“Tea, please,” she said.
“Throw this woman out, Murdoch,” croaked Douglas. “She’s assaulted me in my bed!”
Joan ignored him. “Very strong tea,” she said to the servant, whose gaze was swinging between her and the lump in the bed that was her brother. “With muffins, if you have any.” The servant hesitated, then fell back on his training and bowed to her.
“And brandy!” Douglas called after his departing servant. “Don’t forget the bloody brandy!”
“Douglas, you’re a sot.”
“You’re a nag!” he returned indignantly, shoving himself up on one arm to glare at her. “I never woke you at the break of dawn and started yammering on about balls and betrothals and Mother! God, I’m going to have a beastly headache all day now, thanks to you.”
Joan went to the small writing desk, tossed a crumple of discarded cravats off it, and got out a piece of paper. She uncapped the ink and wrote a brief line, promising to attend the Malcolm ball, then carried it and the pen over to the bed. “Sign this and I shall leave.”
Douglas eyed it as if it were a poisonous snake. “You can’t mean it!”
She sighed. “Then I must stay. Perhaps you can help me decide which color my new dress should be. Blue, do you think? But I’ve got a number of blue ones. Mother thinks pink is my color, but I really don’t like it. Yellow is even worse”—Douglas wrenched the blanket back over his head—”and that leaves green. But I look like a shrub in green. I suppose there’s also orange ... What do you think?”
“Gold,” said a familiar voice from the doorway. “You should wear gold.”
This time Joan was prepared, having expected him to return eventually. So much the better that he’d got right to it; having a quarrel with his friend could only make Douglas even more anxious to appease her. She turned in her chair, a delighted smile on her face, and then stopped cold.
Tristan Burke was quite a sight when surly, half-asleep, and barely dressed. But with his hair slicked back and a deep green dressing gown wrapped around him, he was the essence of seduction. And he was watching her with his heavy-lidded, intent gaze as if she were as fascinating to him as he was to her.
Chapter 2
By the time Tristan located his dressing gown, the invading Fury had found her quarry. Gutted and filleted him as well, to guess by the sound of Bennet’s increasingly desperate voice coming from under the covers. For a moment he stood in the open doorway and let the scene amuse him. Douglas Bennet, the devilish brawler destined to inherit a fortune and an ancient baronetcy, was cowering beneath his blankets like a sniveling boy as the Fury—his sister, if she could be believed—sat calmly beside his bed and talked about dresses.
She didn’t look like a Fury. She looked rather ordinary, to Tristan’s eyes. She was taller than average, with a generous figure that wasn’t at all suited to the current women’s fashion. It made her look ... fat, he thought unkindly. Well, not really fat, but a little more than could be called plump. Her breasts, where a woman ought to be quite plump, were all covered up by an acre of lace, and the petticoats under her pink-striped skirt gave her quite a girth. Her hair was a nice color, but she wore it in those tight ringlets he hated; they looked like a child’s hair, in his opinion. Her face ... her face was handsome, he decided, and interesting, but perhaps that last was due to the unholy glee that sparkled in her eyes as Bennet tried in vain to escape her chatter.
But when she said orange, he cringed. Never orange. Orange was a beastly color on most women, and on her it would be hideous. Tristan considered himself something of a connoisseur of women and their clothing. He loved women, especially beautiful women, and if a woman wasn’t actually beautiful, she could at least look her best. “Gold,” he said. “You should wear gold.”
She twisted to look at him, her face bright with delight. Her expression froze a split second later, but not before Tristan registered the color of her eyes. Deep, rich brown, like fresh coffee, glinting with golden streaks. She should definitely wear gold, a rich warm shade that would play up her admittedly fine complexion. If she would change the style of her hair and wear something flattering, she might be passable, he thought before he could stop himself.
But stop himself he did. First, because she was a Fury, and he didn’t need any more of those in his life. His aunt and cousins were more than enough. Second, because she was Douglas Bennet’s sister, and one didn’t trifle with the sisters of drinking mates unless one wanted to marry them—and even then it was a risky business. But mostly he stopped himself because she was decidedly not his kind of woman, with those fussy little ringlets and lace-shrouded bosom and the way she banged that door knocker like Hephaestus at his anvil. God almighty, no man needed a woman like that.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finding her tongue. “Have you taken up residence?”
“For two months,” he said. “Until my roof is repaired.”
“Ah,” she said. “How lovely that Douglas will have a companion in vice so conveniently at hand.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Vice? How interesting you would seize on that so quickly.”
“It is the first thing that comes to mind when one considers my brother.” She looked him up and down. “And you, I imagine.”
“Good heavens,” he drawled. “It must have been the first thing to come to your mind, then, when I opened the door for you. Should I be flattered?”
The golden flecks in her eyes glinted. “Probably not,” she replied. “I imagine the two of you, thoroughly foxed, unable to walk, lying in your own filth as you sleep it off—no doubt snoring viciously and twitching every few moments.” She flashed him a coy smile. “Are you flattered?”
“You sound as if you know the state well.” He leered at her. “Have you been with us on a bender? I can’t recall seeing you drunk as a lord, but a description such as that is no mere flight of imagination.”
“Oh, but it is,” she assured him. “I have a vivid imagination.”
His gaze dipped again, sweeping over the lace at her neckline that didn’t hide the quick pulse in her throat. Was it anger—or something else? Tristan found himself oddly taken by the Fury’s sharp tongue. “So do I,” he murmured.
“I don’t doubt it,” she said. “Especially if you believe I shall leave without securing my dear brother’s promise to attend the Malcolm ball tomorrow night.” She leaned forward and poked the blankets on the bed again. “Douglas, think how happy Mother will be to call on you this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, to remind you. I shall make a point of telling her you invited her specially.”
