Page 91 of Rogue of My Heart

Three

“Never, in all my days, have I ever so much as heard of anything as wicked and shameful as what you’ve done,” Fergus shouted at Marie the next morning. “And in broad daylight, by the side of the main road as well. It’s unconscionable. It’s reckless. It’s….”

Fergus dissolved into red-faced trembling, apparently unable to find a word bad enough to hurl at Marie.

Henrietta had to rest a hand on his shoulder to settle him. “Calm yourself, darling,” she spoke softly. “Linus is in England, and the nearest physician would take hours to get here. I won’t have you giving yourself apoplexy over a foolish girl.”

Marie sank into herself at the steadily-delivered scolding from Henrietta. All the shouting and gesticulating that Fergus could summon up wasn’t half as devastating as the quiet barb and disapproving look from Lady Henrietta. Marie grasped her hands in front of her, peeking to the side, where her three sisters stood, watching her have her head ripped off for her indiscretions with Christian the day before.

“It’s not as though anything actually happened,” she defended herself with as much backbone as she dared, which wasn’t much.

Fergus, who was trying to breathe evenly, nearly leapt out of his wheelchair. “Not as though anything happened?” For a moment, Marie was afraid his good eye would pop right out of its socket. “You were seen canoodling with Lord Kilrea’s son on the beach, and the son in question was naked.”

Marie flinched as he shouted the last part of the accusation so loudly she feared he would damage his voice. She wanted to grin and smirk over her memory of Christian’s glorious form. The man had nothing to be ashamed of, and indeed, she wasn’t ashamed of a single thing. In spite of every rule of propriety that had ever been thrown in her face and her brother’s rage over the whole thing, she rather admired Christian for his fearlessness. And for his stunning form.

“Well-bred ladies do not converse with naked gentlemen on beaches,” Fergus shouted on. “I don’t know where you got it in your head to behave so wickedly. You shouldn’t even know about such things. The sight of a man’s body should make you faint in terror at the very least.”

Marie let out a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes. “Really, Fergus. This is not the Middle Ages. We’re almost in the twentieth century. Women are not ignorant ninnies anymore who need table legs covered for fear of?—”

“You are my sister, and you have a level of respectability to maintain because of it,” Fergus silenced her.

“But, Fergus—” Marie snapped her mouth shut and lowered her head slightly when it looked as though her brother might regain every bit of his power of movement through sheer willpower for the express purpose of lunging at her to wring her neck.

“How could you possibly think in a thousand years that even one moment of what you did yesterday was anything close to appropriate?” Fergus went on. One of Marie’s sisters made a sound, and Fergus jerked to glare at them. “And don’t think the rest of you are safe from the same sort of censure.” He pointed at each of them in turn. “You’re all as bad as the next. I should have heeded the letters Lady Coyle has been sending me for years and come home to dispose of you all much sooner.”

Marie had the uncomfortable feeling that by “dispose” her brother meant in shallow, unmarked graves and not through matrimony.

“Mr. Darrow was bathing in the ocean.” Marie tried one last effort to diffuse the situation. “He was the one who stood up and walked toward me on the beach.”

“And you should have turned and fled,” Fergus roared, not even slightly appeased, “not fallen into conversation with the man while all his bits were hanging.”

It took a supreme effort of will for Marie not to snort at the remembered image of those hanging bits. Or the dark thatch of curls that surrounded them, or the firm plane of Christian’s stomach, his strong muscles, or his sun-kissed skin glittering with saltwater as he?—

“So help me God, Marie, if that smirk is an indication of you remembering what you saw, I will lock you away in the tiniest broom closet this castle has and keep you there until you’re old and shriveled,” Fergus growled.

“I was not imagining anything,” Marie lied, her face heating.

“I don’t believe you for a moment,” Fergus said. “I knew you were a saucy strumpet, but I had no idea you would go this far to fling the laws of man and of nature out the window.”

“I did no such thing,” Marie argued with sudden force. She planted her fists on her hips and took a step toward her brother. “I was polite to Mr. Darrow, and yes, we had a bit of fun that some people would see as inappropriate. But it’s not as though I stripped my own clothes off and flung myself at him.” Though she had to admit that patting his bum while pretending he was a selkie might have crossed a line or two. It was such a nice bum, though—firm and warm and the perfect handful. She wouldn’t have minded exploring much more of Christian’s exquisite body. For scientific purposes, of course.

Fergus wasn’t amused by her argument. “You’re only lucky that his cousin, John, back in England is a close friend of mine. Otherwise, I would challenge the lecherous blackguard to pistols at dawn.”

“Fergus.” Marie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “No one duels anymore, and even if they did, you’re in no—” She stopped herself short at the flash of hurt in her brother’s eyes. The attack had happened years ago, but no one in the family had truly talked about it since then. A lump formed in Marie’s throat at the sudden knowledge of what her brother had lost and how much it still hurt him.

She cleared her throat and went on while Fergus was still stung. “I like Mr. Darrow. He’s jolly and free. I could see right away that he’s a man who knows how to have fun. That’s all we did. We had fun pretending to some old woman passing by that he was a selkie that had washed up on the shore.”

Fergus glared at her, still red with fury.

“Yes, it was childish,” Marie went on. “But what is life if we cannot embrace simple, childish joys now and then?”

“You are not a child,” Fergus growled.

“No, I’m not. But I’m still capable of joy. We all are, but those rules of society that you seem so intent to embrace would have us all turn into grey automatons the moment we leave the schoolroom. Why is it so very wrong for me to live a life that makes me smile and laugh? And who deemed it inappropriate for me to converse with a man who clearly has no qualms about nudity?”

“Lady Coyle informed us that the two of you were kissing,” Henrietta said, one eyebrow arched as if to call Marie out for her insolence.

Marie winced, her face so hot it felt sunburned. “Yes, well, it was an incidental kiss.”