bed with a megrim.’
‘So I must let your brother drown me to put her into good humour again?’
‘If you would be so kind.’
She held out her hand to him, and he was more than ready to follow wherever she might lead. But when he smiled at her, she looked so worried that he put on his most perturbed expression and yawned. ‘The least you could do is deny it, you know. If you wish me to behave, you will do much better with flattery than you do with the truth.’
‘If I flatter you, it might cause your head to swell more than it already has.’ She gave him her usually cynical smile. ‘I dare not risk it, Tremaine. Come on, then. We can finish this business by New Year if we apply ourselves to it.’
Chapter Twelve
Rosalind pushed him into the hallway ahead of her, announcing, ‘I have found him.’
Harry beamed in triumph. ‘And about time. Do not think that you can avoid the party, Tremaine. It is hardly keeping in the spirit of the bet if you do not try.’
Nick sighed, and prepared for a dunking. ‘Very well, then. What have I to do to get you to leave me alone?’
‘Play our little game.’ Harry led him into the hall and gestured expansively towards the centre of the room. ‘We have all had a turn, and the other guests are eager to see how you fare.’
True to his word, there was a large crowd gathered around a basin of water, and the air smelled of apples. The daughter of a lord was holding a fruit in her hand and shaking the water from her pretty blonde locks, and everyone was laughing heartily and congratulating her on her success.
There were calls of encouragement from the crowd, accompanied by drunken laughter.
Tremaine approached the pan of water with caution, and looked down at the abused fruit floating there. He stalled. ‘And I am to…?’ He looked down into the water again.
‘Put your face in, grab an apple and bite.’ Harry was grinning.
He knew that Harry would never be so foolish as to kill him in front of witnesses. The worst that would happen would be a wet head. Embarrassing, of course. But not so terrible, really. It would be over in a minute. Nick stepped up to the basin, bent awkwardly at the waist, and placed his face near the water.
He dutifully chased one of the remaining apples around the edge of the pan, while Harry stood behind him, pretending to offer encouragement.
‘You have nothing to be afraid of.’
Harry was laughing at him, the miserable bastard. But he could hear Elise laughing too, so he soldiered on.
‘The water is not so very deep. You will not drown,’ Harry said. And then he whispered, directly into Nick’s ear, ‘I’m right behind you.’
Nick leaned too close to the water, trying to escape him, and took a quantity of it up his nose. He gasped and shot upright again, coughing, to the laughter of the crowd around him.
Harry clapped him smartly on the back to clear his lungs. ‘There, there. You have it all wrong. You are not to drink the water. You are to eat the apple. Try again.’
He glared at Harry and stared at Rosalind. ‘This is part of your brilliant plan, is it?’
She gave him a frustrated smile, and said, ‘Take your turn and let others have a chance.’ She rolled her eyes and cast a significant glance at Elise.
‘Very well. But if anything untoward occurs I will hold you responsible, even in the afterlife.’
‘Tremaine, do not be an ass.’ She pushed past her brother, took him by the back of the neck, and pushed his face down into the water.
This time he had the good sense to hold his breath, and came up dripping, with an apple in his mouth. To complete the humiliation of it, Elise was leading the crowd who laughed at his discomposure.
‘That was not so bad, was it?’ Rosalind grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out of the way of the next player. Then she took the apple from his mouth and offered him linen to dry his face.
‘Did I perform to your satisfaction?’ he asked, tipping his head to drain the water from his ear.
‘You were most amusing. Elise is laughing again-at you, and in front of Harry. That cannot but help put him in a good mood.’ She took a bite from the apple that he had caught.
He watched her slender fingers caressing the fruit, her red lips, so memorably kissable, touching the place where he had bitten, the delicate workings of her pale throat as she chewed and swallowed. And suddenly he knew how Adam must have felt when Eve came to him with a wild scheme that he knew would end in disaster. He had agreed, because how could he have refused her, even if it meant the ruin of all?
‘It will not be long, I think, before Harry decides his pride is not so very important.’ She looked speculatively at Elise. ‘Then perhaps I shall be able to turn the rest of the party over to his wife.’
‘And when she is back as mistress of this house what shall you do?’ he whispered. ‘Do you mean to see Pompeii, then? Once you have your freedom?’
The apple froze, halfway to her mouth, and she gave him a blank stare. ‘What do I mean to do? Harry is right, Tremaine. You are an idiot. Harry will send me home after the holidays. I will return to Shropshire and my needlework, my jelly-making and my good works.’
He snorted at the idea. ‘Do you miss home so much?’
‘I do not miss home in the slightest. But where else am I to go?’ She took another bite of the apple.
He watched her lick a drop of apple juice from her lip, and fought down the desire to suggest some good works she might try that had nothing to do with making jelly. ‘Now that you have left your father’s house, you might enjoy travelling. For you seem to have a taste for adventure.’
She laughed. ‘Tell me, sir, when you are in the city, what do you drive?’
He thought for a moment. ‘At this time I have several carriages. A curricle, of course, and a high-perch phaeton as well. Pulled by the finest pair of matched blacks in London.’
She gave a little moan of pleasure, and then looked him square in the eye. ‘We have a pony cart, which Father allows me to drive to the market in Clun. But only when the weather is fine and no one else is free to take me. The rest of the time I must walk.’ She pulled a stern face, probably mimicking her father. ‘But never alone. My father warns against the dangers present for young ladies travelling alone. But what they are I have no idea.’ She gave a dry sigh. ‘A trip to Pompeii might have seemed a lark to you, but it would be no more likely for me than a trip to the moon.’
Rosalind was making her future sound quite grim, so he rushed to reassure her-and himself-that it needn’t be so. ‘Do not fear, little one. Some day you will find a man who will take you to Italy.’ Although he found that thought to be strangely annoying.
She spun the apple core on its stem, looking for a place to set it. ‘I do not understand why everyone is so convinced that I cannot find a husband. As it so happens, I find them frequently enough. And then I find them wanting. I have had three proposals, just this year. All fine, upstanding men, who were willing to offer me a life no different from the one I have: full of restrictions and cautions and common sense. It appears being a wife is little different from being a daughter, and so I will have none of it. In this, at least, I am in full agreement with Elise. If a husband does not offer the love and respect I truly desire, and means to treat me no better than an overgrown child or an inanimate object, then it is better to do without.’
This took him aback. ‘You have refused suitors?’
‘Yes, I have. The rest of the world does not find me so repellent as you must, Tremaine.’
Here he was supposed to offer a compliment. But his glib tongue failed him, and the best he could manage was, ‘I would hardly say you were repellent.’
She gave him a tired look and batted her lashes. ‘I shall cherish your sweet words on my journey back to Shropshire.’
‘But there must be some other alternative. Another place you could go…’ He racked his brain for a better answer.
