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Authors: Loretta Chase
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incapable of acting responsibly.”
A stinging stream of indignation shot through her. She did not see why he must be plagued with such matters this day. All he needed to sign were the marriage settlements. He should not be asked to sign his whole life away in the bargain.
“Protected from whom?” she asked. “Grasping relatives? According to Abonville, there’s no one left of the Camoys but a few dithering old ladies.”
“It isn’t merely the property,” he said. His voice was taut, his face a rigid white mask.
She wanted to reach up and smooth the turmoil and tension away, but that would look like pity. She plucked a leaf from a rhododendron and traced its shape instead.
“The guardianship includes legal custody . . . of me,” he said. “Because I cannot be responsible for myself, I must be considered a child.”
He was not irresponsible yet or remotely child-like. Gwendolyn had told Abonville so. She knew her lecture had calmed the duc down, yet it was too much to hope that her speeches could fully quell his overprotectiveness. He meant well, she reminded herself. He assumed the marriage would be too great an ordeal for her and wished to share the burden.
She could hardly expect her future grandfather to fully understand her capabilities when none of the other men in her family did. None of them took her medical studies and work seriously. Her dedicated efforts remained, as far as the males were concerned, “Gwendolyn’s little hobby.”
“It is very difficult to think clearly,” Rawnsley went on in the same ferociously controlled tones, “with a pair of lawyers and an overanxious would-be grandpapa hovering over me. And Bertie’s holding his tongue was no help, when he had to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth to do it, and he still couldn’t stop sniffling. I came out to clear my head, because . . . damnation. ” He dragged his hair back from his face. “The fact is, I do not feel reasonable about this. I wanted to tell them to go to the Devil. But my own solicitor agreed with them. If I object, they’ll all believe I’m irrational.”
And he was worried he’d end up in a madhouse, Gwendolyn understood.
That he’d come to her with his problem seemed to be a good sign. But Gwendolyn knew better than to pin her hopes on what seemed to be.
She moved to stand in front of him. He did not look down at her.
“My lord, you are aware, I hope, that the 1774 Act for Regulating Madhouses included provisions to protect sane persons from improper detention,” she said. “At present, only an examining body composed of imbeciles and criminal lunatics could possibly find you non compos mentis. You need not sign every stupid paper those annoying men wave in your face in order to prove you are sane.”
“I must prove it to Abonville,” he said stiffly. “If he decides I’m mad, he’ll take you away.”
She doubted the prospect was intolerable to him. She knew he’d agreed to marry her for what he believed were the wrong reasons. She doubted he’d developed a case of desperate infatuation during the last few hours.
It was far more likely that he’d come to test her. If she failed, he would believe it was wise to let her go.
Gwendolyn had been tested before, by certified lunatics, among others, and this man was no more deranged at present than she. Nevertheless she did not make the mistake of imagining this trial would be easier—or less dangerous. She had marked him as dangerous from the first moment he had turned his smoldering yellow gaze upon her. She was sure he fully understood its compelling effect and knew how to use it.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the brooding yellow gaze lowered to hers. “What’s left of my reason tells me you represent an infernal complication, Miss Adams, and I should be better off rid of you. The voice of reason, however, is not the only one I hear—and rarely the one I heed,” he added darkly.
His gaze drifted down . . . lingered at her
A stinging stream of indignation shot through her. She did not see why he must be plagued with such matters this day. All he needed to sign were the marriage settlements. He should not be asked to sign his whole life away in the bargain.
“Protected from whom?” she asked. “Grasping relatives? According to Abonville, there’s no one left of the Camoys but a few dithering old ladies.”
“It isn’t merely the property,” he said. His voice was taut, his face a rigid white mask.
She wanted to reach up and smooth the turmoil and tension away, but that would look like pity. She plucked a leaf from a rhododendron and traced its shape instead.
“The guardianship includes legal custody . . . of me,” he said. “Because I cannot be responsible for myself, I must be considered a child.”
He was not irresponsible yet or remotely child-like. Gwendolyn had told Abonville so. She knew her lecture had calmed the duc down, yet it was too much to hope that her speeches could fully quell his overprotectiveness. He meant well, she reminded herself. He assumed the marriage would be too great an ordeal for her and wished to share the burden.
She could hardly expect her future grandfather to fully understand her capabilities when none of the other men in her family did. None of them took her medical studies and work seriously. Her dedicated efforts remained, as far as the males were concerned, “Gwendolyn’s little hobby.”
“It is very difficult to think clearly,” Rawnsley went on in the same ferociously controlled tones, “with a pair of lawyers and an overanxious would-be grandpapa hovering over me. And Bertie’s holding his tongue was no help, when he had to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth to do it, and he still couldn’t stop sniffling. I came out to clear my head, because . . . damnation. ” He dragged his hair back from his face. “The fact is, I do not feel reasonable about this. I wanted to tell them to go to the Devil. But my own solicitor agreed with them. If I object, they’ll all believe I’m irrational.”
And he was worried he’d end up in a madhouse, Gwendolyn understood.
That he’d come to her with his problem seemed to be a good sign. But Gwendolyn knew better than to pin her hopes on what seemed to be.
She moved to stand in front of him. He did not look down at her.
“My lord, you are aware, I hope, that the 1774 Act for Regulating Madhouses included provisions to protect sane persons from improper detention,” she said. “At present, only an examining body composed of imbeciles and criminal lunatics could possibly find you non compos mentis. You need not sign every stupid paper those annoying men wave in your face in order to prove you are sane.”
“I must prove it to Abonville,” he said stiffly. “If he decides I’m mad, he’ll take you away.”
She doubted the prospect was intolerable to him. She knew he’d agreed to marry her for what he believed were the wrong reasons. She doubted he’d developed a case of desperate infatuation during the last few hours.
It was far more likely that he’d come to test her. If she failed, he would believe it was wise to let her go.
Gwendolyn had been tested before, by certified lunatics, among others, and this man was no more deranged at present than she. Nevertheless she did not make the mistake of imagining this trial would be easier—or less dangerous. She had marked him as dangerous from the first moment he had turned his smoldering yellow gaze upon her. She was sure he fully understood its compelling effect and knew how to use it.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the brooding yellow gaze lowered to hers. “What’s left of my reason tells me you represent an infernal complication, Miss Adams, and I should be better off rid of you. The voice of reason, however, is not the only one I hear—and rarely the one I heed,” he added darkly.
His gaze drifted down . . . lingered at her
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