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"Is that so?"
"Indeed." She waved her fork in the air for emphasis before drinking a bit more wine.
"And how am I atypical?"
Henry chewed on her lower lip, dimly aware that she had just been cornered. "Well, you're quite friendly."
"And most Englishmen aren't?"
"Not to me."
His lips curved wryly. "They obviously don't know what they are missing."
"I say," she said, narrowing her eyes, "you aren't being sarcastic, are you?"
"Believe me, Henry, I have never been less sarcastic. You are quite the most interesting person I've met in months."
She scanned his face for signs of duplicity but found none. "I believe you mean it."
He bit back another smile, silently regarding the woman sitting across from him. Her expression was a delightful combination of arrogance and concern, slightly clouded by tipsiness. She was waving her fork in the air as she spoke, seemingly oblivious to the morsel of pheasant dangling perilously off the end. "Why aren't men friendly to you?" he asked softly.
Henry wondered why it was so easy to talk to this man, whether it was the wine or just him. Either way, she decided, the wine couldn't hurt. She took another sip. "I think they think I'm a freak," she finally said.
Dunford paused at her bald honesty. "You're certainly not that. You just need someone to teach you how to be a woman."
"Oh, I know how to be a woman. I'm just not the kind of woman men want."
Her speech was risqué enough to make him cough on his food. Reminding himself that she had no idea what she was saying, he swallowed and murmured, "I'm sure you're exaggerating."
"I'm sure you're lying. You yourself just said I was odd."
"I said you were uncommon. And that doesn't mean that no one would want, er, be interested in you." Then, to his horror, he realized he could be interested in her. Quite, if he let himself think about it too much. With a mental groan, he pushed the thought away. He had no time in his life for a country-bred miss. Despite her rather odd behavior, Henry wasn't the sort of woman with whom one did anything other than marry, and he certainly didn't want to marry her.
Still, there was something rather intriguing about her...
"Shut up, Dunford," he muttered.
"Did you say something, my lord?"
"Not at all, Henry, and please don't bother with the 'my lord.' I'm not used to it, and furthermore, it seems rather out of place if I'm calling you Henry."
"Then what should I call you?"
"Dunford. Everyone does," he said, unconsciously echoing her earlier words.
"Don't you have a first name?" she asked, surprising herself with the flirtatious tone of her voice.
"Not really."
"What does that mean, 'not really'?"
"I suppose that officially, yes, I do have one, but no one ever uses it."
"But what is it?"
He leaned forward, slaying her with another one of his lethal smiles. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," she retorted.
"Not to me," he said blithely, chewing on some pheasant.
"You can be rather irritating, Mr. Dunford."
"Just Dunford, if you please."
"Very well. You can be rather irritating, Dunford."
"So I've been told from time to time."
"Of that I have no doubt."
"I suspect that people have occasionally commented on your abilities to irritate as well, Miss Henry."
Henry had to smile sheepishly. He was absolutely right. "I suppose that's why we get on so famously."
"So we do." Dunford wondered why he was so surprised to realize it, then decided there was no use wondering. "A toast, then," he said, raising his glass. "To the most irritating twosome in Cornwall."
"In Britain!"
"Very well, in Britain. Long may we irritate."
Later that night, as Henry was brushing out her hair for bed, she started to wonder. If Dunford was so much fun, why was she so eager to boot him off the estate?
Chapter 3
Henry woke the next morning with a most vexing headache. She staggered out of bed and splashed some water on her face, all the while wondering why her tongue felt so strange. Positively woolly.
It must have been the wine, she thought, smacking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She wasn't used to having it with dinner, and then Dunford coerced her into making that toast with him. She tried rubbing her tongue against her teeth. Still woolly.
She pulled on her shirt and breeches, secured her hair back with a green ribbon, and made it into the upstairs hall just in time to intercept a maid who appeared to be on her way to Dunford's room.
"Oh, hello, Polly," Henry said, planting herself firmly in the maid's path. "What are you about this morning?"
"His Lordship rang, Miss Henry. I was just going to see what he wants."
"I'll take care of it." Henry gave the maid a big, close-lipped smile.
Polly blinked. "All right," she said slowly. "If you think—"
"Oh, I definitely do think," Henry interrupted, placing her hands on Polly's shoulders and turning her around. "I think all the time, as a matter of fact. Now, why don't you go find Mrs. Simpson? I'm certain she'll have something pressing that needs doing." She gave Polly a little push and watched as she disappeared down the stairs.
Henry sucked in her breath as she tried to figure out what to do next. She had half a mind to turn around and ignore Dunford's summons, but the blasted man would only pull the bellpull again, and when he asked why no one had answered his previous summons—of course Polly was going to say Henry had intercepted her.