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“You, my lord, are positively ghastly! I’m sure with such abhorrent behavior, you can goad plenty of people into fighting with you. As to your other urges, it is a marvel you can find any woman willing to indulge them.”

A stunned silence followed the declaration.

Then Christopher barked another laugh. “‘Positively ghastly.’ I’ll be sure to remember it.

Of all the things people have called me over the years, this has to be my favorite.

You see, usually, people try to mitigate their outrage; they do not dare tell me what they really think, so they always end up making rather bland observations that fail to pierce my thick hide.

” There was another laugh, this time more like a chuckle, a rather unexpected sound coming from a man so virile.

“But you did me the honor of not sparing my sensibilities.”

“That may be because I assumed you had none.”

“Ah. Very wise. Another mistake other people make is assuming that I will take offense if they tell me what they think. I never do for I care not what they think as long as they don’t ignore me.”

To Sian’s intense surprise, he took her hand and placed a kiss on her fingers. She should have pulled away, but she couldn’t. It was the first time they had touched, and all she could think was that she didn’t want it to be the last.

For ten years, she had waited for that moment, and now that it had finally come, she could do nothing but enjoy it. Then she stiffened, remembering what he had just told her about tumbling another woman in the hay. She could not let him believe he could unsettle her and get away with it.

She had to retaliate.

“Oh, and just so you know, my lord, we Welsh do not live in houses made of bones.”

The look of bewilderment on his face was ample reward for her efforts. “Bones?”

“Bones.” Let him mull over what she meant. If he didn’t remember their previous encounters, he had only himself to blame. And it would do him good to be the one unsettled for once. It was not hard to guess that it didn’t happen to him often.

But, as could have been predicted, he recovered quickly enough. “If you’ll excuse me, my lady, I have some pressing arrangements.”

“Another tryst, perchance?”

His throaty laugh made her shiver. So masculine … “No, I don’t think I will bed another woman until at least tonight. A man has to get things done, you know.”

Sian watched the copper horse thunder away. Jane had been right all along. Christopher Harrison was an insufferable rogue, debauched, provoking, and arrogant. But even worse, none of that was enough to change her mind.

In spite of it all, she still thought she would have none other as her husband.

Christopher brought another cube of cheese to his mouth and chewed it without noticing the taste. The little firebrand who’d caught him red-handed coming from the stables after his encounter with Elsie was Jane Hunter’s sister?

This he had not seen coming, because she was everything Connor Hunter’s poised, elegant, intimidating daughter was not.

In fact, he would have gone as far as calling her unassuming.

Had she not walked straight into him, almost dropping the puppy she’d been holding in the process, he would most likely not have noticed her.

Which would have been a mistake. Once he’d stopped to look at her, he’d seen that she was not quite like any other woman he had ever seen.

He had not lied to her. Her sister was too perfect to attract him. Jane might be stunning to look at, but there was nothing remotely interesting in that. Perfection offered no challenge.

Sian definitely did. She was different—in many ways.

Even her name was unusual. He’d never heard it before.

Perhaps because it was Welsh, like her. He’d heard it said often enough that the people from that country were savages, and as a child, he had not questioned it.

Why would he have? Adults were supposed to know better.

But of late, he had come to wonder. How could all the people populating a vast country be the same or even similar?

He was nothing like Sir Robert, Lord Gillingham, or even his father, and yet they were all of them English.

What would he think if a Scot told him that, as far as he was concerned, all his countrymen were as pig-headed as his neighbor, as entitled as the king, or as idiotic as the knight he’d met the previous day? He would be appalled.

It followed that not all Welsh people should be dismissed as savages without appeal. Sian certainly should not. She had drawn him in in a way few people had.

Perhaps because of his mismatched eyes, Christopher had always disliked physically perfect people, feeling at a disadvantage in front of them. Used to being stared at and even mocked, he instinctively sympathized with people who he imagined had experienced the same thing.

It was not hard to guess that little Sian was always compared unfavorably to her perfect sister.

Her hair had a life of its own, and one of her teeth was decidedly crooked.

Her manners were bold, her gaze frank. One did not think “beautiful” when one saw her but rather “endearing.” One was not awed but intrigued.

She was approachable, clumsy, unpredictable—everything her sister was not.

You never knew what would come out of her mouth.

Her scathing assessment of his character was a good example.

Not many people would have dared tell him to his face that he was not only ghastly but also positively so or that he would find it hard to seduce women.

Then there had been her comment about not living in a house made of bones.

That had to be the most puzzling statement he’d ever heard.

As if all that was not enough, she had then asked him whether he was going to meet another woman that afternoon.

Not a man easily taken by surprise, Christopher had been piqued.

A discussion with her would be sure to stimulate, and stimulation was something his life sorely lacked.

No one ever challenged him, few people managed to raise his interest, and only a handful remained in his mind once he’d left their company.

He finished his cheese with decision. Today had brought a pleasant surprise, one he might explore further.

And so the next time he went back to Sheridan Manor, it was not to see Elsie or Bess but to see whether he could further his acquaintance with little Sian.

He had gotten everything he was ever going to get out of the two maids.

They were too fawning by far, giggling at his jests, asking questions he had already answered a dozen times, pretending not to notice that his eyes were of different colors.

Sian, by contrast, had stared at them in fascination, her own eyes darting from one side to the other as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

As if she liked what she was seeing. No one had ever made him feel as if the defect could be something to be appreciated.

They usually behaved as if his eyes were unremarkable, thinking he would prefer it that way.

He did not, he liked to be seen for what he was.

He rode through the gate one morning, and instead of sneaking to the kitchen like a thief, as he was wont to do, he asked for Sian like a regular, honorable visitor. But James Mortimer, the dour steward, informed him she’d gone back to Wales the day before.

Christopher left without even dismounting.