Liberty for Paul (10 page)

His statement was met by total silence. They were all probably suffering a small case of shock at his defense of Liberty.

“Today was the first time she’d stayed irritated with me longer than just a few minutes,” he explained.

“Is this the first time you’ve done something to give her reason to become irritated?” Alex asked, looking at Paul as if he were collecting information for a science experiment.

“No,” Paul said quietly.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Is there any consistency to your actions that spark her temper?”

“What?” Paul asked, slightly confused.

“What’s happened the past few weeks that made her mad?” Alex asked.

“Well, I…” he trailed off, there was no way he was going to tell them about the chemise incident, “…I…umm…used her first name,” he finally said.

Four sets of eyes impaled him with their stares. He assumed they would have all taken his side and thought that was as ridiculous as he did. But John surprised him by saying, “Son, I’ve never doubted your intelligence before, but have you met my daughter?”

Paul was a bit taken aback and looked to the other three for support. But all three of them looked at him with identical faces that said, “Paul, you’re an idiot.”

“You do know that Liberty eats, sleeps, and breathes propriety, don’t you?” John said flatly. “I’ve never seen anyone enjoy it so much. But for some unknown reason she does. It’s her life.”

All three of the other men nodded their wholehearted agreement.

They were wrong. He may not know Liberty that well, but he knew they had to be wrong. Nobody enjoyed propriety. “That’s not true,” he said hoarsely. “If she cared so much for propriety she wouldn’t have a ‘devil of a temper’ as you so kindly put it.”

“That’s what makes Liberty a hard case study,” Alex said thoughtfully. “She has a few extreme inconsistencies.”

Paul scowled at him, suddenly feeling very defensive of Liberty. His wife was not a scientific experiment on display for everyone to pick apart. “What’s wrong with calling her Liberty anyway? You all do.”

“I’m her father,” John said.

“I’m her uncle,” the baron told him.

“I’m her cousin,” Alex put in.

“I’m her brother…in-law,” Andrew added.

“Well, I’m her husband, which means my relationship trumps all of yours,” Paul said triumphantly.

“That doesn’t matter,” John said, shaking his head. “It’s perfectly acceptable, encouraged even, to address your spouse formerly. You should know that.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” Paul said, irritated. He crossed his arms defensively.

Andrew sent him a sympathetic look. “Have you given anymore thought to our discussion a few weeks ago?” he asked, tapping his teeth.

Paul’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What on earth was Andrew talking about?

Andrew stretched his lips into an overdone smile.

“Oh,” Paul said, comprehension dawning. “Actually, I have gotten her to smile, but only because she was truly angry and I suggested to her a way to ease her aggression.”

Nobody said anything.

“Not that,” Paul snapped, rolling his eyes. Get a group of men together and all they can do is think about sex. “I told her to pretend the beans on her plate were my head. She smiled for fifteen minutes straight while she stabbed every single one of those beans with so much force it caused the table to shake and the dishes to clatter.”

All four men howled with laughter when he did his impression of what she looked like holding her fork and stabbing it down on her plate.

“Stop! Stop!” John bellowed, bent over holding his stomach. “I don’t think my heart can take much more.”

“Is that the only time?” Andrew asked, wiping his eyes.

“Yes,” Paul said, nodding. “Sad, isn’t it? The only time she’s smiled in the past two weeks was when she was pretending to cause bodily harm to her husband.”

“Have you tried to get her to smile?” Andrew asked.

“No,” he said honestly. He’d thought the key to Liberty was to nettle her enough she’d drop her act, and then he’d work on getting her to smile. He had no idea how to deal with the brittle person she’d become recently. At least if she were full of fire and fury, he might be able to get a genuine emotion out of her.

“You do know St. Valentine’s Day is within the week, don’t you” Andrew said as if that fact was of grave importance.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Alex, the only unmarried man in the room, asked.

“Everything,” Andrew, John, and the baron said in unison.

“Don’t bungle this one, boy,” the baron muttered, “or you’ll be paying for it for the rest of your life.”

“Amen,” John said vehemently. When all eyes turned on him, he said, “I may not know from personal experience like Edward here, but I’ve seen enough happy—and unhappy—couples in my day to know the truth of Edward’s statement.”

Paul nodded. He’d only given a girl a gift on St. Valentine’s Day one time and that was more than eight years ago. Good thing he had a few days to think about something for her.

“You could buy her a book on etiquette. That’s guaranteed to bring a smile to her face,” Alex suggested helpfully.

“Don’t,” Andrew countered.

Paul shook his head. “I hadn’t planned on it. She’s read too many as it is.”

“You have no idea,” John said with a shudder. “When we loaded all her books up yesterday, I almost passed out when I started to think about how much of my salary was spent on books about manners.”

“You wouldn’t by any chance be willing to take all those back to London with you, would you?” Paul asked, begging John with his glance.

“No, sir,” John said, not in the least bit apologetically. “I’ve already dropped them off at your house.”

“Great,” Paul muttered.

“Just think, they’ll serve as great reading material when you can’t sleep at night,” Andrew suggested with a grin.

“Perhaps you’d like a few, then,” Paul suggested.

“I wouldn’t do that,” John said sternly.

“What?” Paul and Andrew asked at the same time.

“Separate them. Liberty has gone through great pains to catalog each and every book. She’ll notice if some are missing,” John said, trying to keep a straight face.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Paul said, his eyes boring into John’s.

“I’m not. Sorry, man,” he answered, giving an unapologetic shrug.

“Damn, John, you’ve got one weird offspring there,” his brother said.

John’s head swung around to face his brother. “And you don’t?” he retorted, his eyes flickering to Alex.

Edward’s gaze drifted to Alex who was rereading his notes on hedgehog mating. “Touché.”

Just then the door swung open and the five ladies walked in. “What have you all been talking about?” Brooke demanded of no one in particular as soon as she was across the threshold.

“Nothing that any of you’d care to hear about, darling,” Andrew said, brushing a kiss on the top of his wife’s head.

“Try us,” Liberty said pertly, pursing her lips and letting her gaze fall on each of the men. When she got to Paul, he flashed her a smile and said, “Nothing so interesting,” he raised one shoulder in a lopsided shrug, “just the mating habits of hedgehogs.”

Chapter 13

“Just how dimwitted do you think I am?” Liberty demanded shrilly, placing her hands on her hips and twisting her lips. “I don’t pretend to know your mind, Mr. Grimes, but even I hadn’t thought you capable to stoop so low.”

“And how low would that be, Liberty?” he drawled.

She ignored his use of her name. “So low you’d make up a ridiculous lie about the…the…” she waved her hand vaguely, her face flaming red, “habits of hedgehogs. As if I would believe such a thing. Who in his right mind would even care about such a thing?” she said with a sniff.

Madison walked up to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. “Dearest, you might want to be careful what you say,” she murmured softly with a pointed glance at Alex.

“
Oh, please,” she said with a sigh. “Even Alex has no interest in
that
.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Madison returned quietly.

Liberty’s eyes flew to where Alex sat behind his father’s desk rigid as a statue, clutching a fistful of papers. She walked across the room and thought she was going to die of mortification when she grabbed the papers from Alex’s vice-like grip and saw right before her very eyes a detailed description of the mating habits between hedgehogs. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Alex,” she said sincerely. “I didn’t mean… Oh, please forgive me.”

“It’s all right,” Alex said quickly, his bright red, embarrassed face belying his words.

“Perhaps we should be going,” her irritating husband intoned.

She wanted to disagree, but embarrassment usually made a person want to flee the scene.

If the tension in the baron’s study wasn’t bad enough, the hostility in the carriage was. Paul had to ride back in the carriage with her because it looked like it might storm soon and he deemed it too dangerous to ride his horse when there was a chance of lightening.

“How dare you make a fool of me that way,” Liberty burst out once they were out of the drive.

“Whatever do you mean?” Paul asked testily.

She glared at him. “All day today you’ve made a fool of me.”

“Since all you did was rephrase your accusation, allow me to rephrase. How?”

Liberty had been mad before, but now she was borderline furious. Not only had he made her look bad in front of her family, he was now purposely playing like he had no idea what she was talking about. “You made me look bad in front of my family.”

“I did no such thing,” he countered irritably. “You did that all on your own.”

Rage built in her chest. “No I didn’t,” she hissed. “You purposely provoked me and made me look bad.”

“Nobody told you to insult Alex. Your problem is that you’re always ready to believe the worst of me.”

“That’s not true,” she rebutted.

“Isn’t it?” he countered, leaning so close his face was mere inches from hers. His nostrils flared and his eyes looked as hard as emeralds. His stare was hot and intent and undoubtedly full of a challenge.

She’d never seen him look thus, and she knew she’d given him ample opportunity before now. For some reason he was just as mad, if not madder, than her. Good. They could have their fight now. She was tired of pretending to be some docile creature, not that she’d done a great job of it so far, but the game was up. The rage she felt inside her was similar to an inferno, and she was about to boil over.

“No,” she said haughtily, “I’ve not always thought the worst of you. The problem lies with you. You repeatedly provide me with opportunities to think poorly of you.”

Paul snorted at her words. “Is that so?” he asked, his voice hard as steel. “Tell me, the first night we were introduced, what did I do that made you take an instant dislike to me?”

She didn’t even have to think about that. “You insisted I call you by your Christian name,” she said primly.

“You’re kidding,” he said in a low tone, shaking his head. He fixed his gaze on a sconce across the carriage. “The reason you dislike me so much is because I asked you to call me Paul?” His voice was full of disbelief.

“Well, no,” she said, causing his head to snap back in her direction. “That’s why I took an instant dislike to you. But the reason I continued to dislike you has to do with your pompous attitude.”

“Excuse me?” he snapped. “I have never been pompous a day in my life.”

“Oh, yes, you have,” she replied, with a sharp bob of her head. “Not the very next day you were.”

His lips twisted into something that would pass for a sneer. “Madam, if you refer to the set down I handed you after you so hatefully criticized your sister, then you’re thinking is more skewed than I thought possible.”

“You had no call to say those things to me,” she said sharply. She’d never let him—or anyone—know how much his words had hurt her that day. She’d always worried she’d never marry, and when he said she was well on her way to becoming a spinster, to her, that was as good as confirming her own worst nightmare.

“And if you remember correctly,” he said through clenched teeth, “I apologized to you and your exact response was, ‘apology not accepted’.”

Releasing a pent up breath, she shook her head. “You only apologized because you were afraid of losing my father’s friendship. It had nothing to do with any feelings of remorse.”

“Maybe so,” he allowed quietly. “To be honest, it’s been a long time. I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking. However, I do know that I approached you to apologize on my own. I was not goaded into by your father.”

“I know,” she admitted. She knew he’d come to her on his own. She’d been so overcome with feelings when he’d approached her, the most prominent being anger, she’d rejected his apology and sent him away with a flea in his ear.

“Liberty,” Paul said, breaking into her thoughts. “I have no wish to discuss the past with you. Unless you want to tell me the real reason you harbor ill feelings against me, that is.” He gave her a look that was meant to encourage her to spill her secrets, but she held quiet. With a sigh he said, “Since us discussing the past seems to be as effective as trying to win a foot race when your ankles are tied together, please tell me what has set you off today.”

“You!” she yelled. All the anger that had been for the most part banked came flooding back with great momentum.

“How helpful an explanation you offer,” he mused. “Care to elaborate?” His voice was light, but his facial expression hadn’t changed. It was painfully clear he was in a temper. And a foul one at that.

“You were late,” she said impatiently.

Paul’s teeth ground together so hard, she wouldn’t be surprised if soon he started spitting dust on the floor. “I apologized for that. I didn’t expect anyone to wait on me.”

“Why were you late?” she demanded hotly.

He crossed his arms across his chest defensively. “I told you, I lost track of time.”

“Flimsy excuse. Try again,” she said archly like she was a governess and he was a child.

“I don’t have to answer to you,” he snapped. “I’ve apologized for being late. There’s nothing more for it.”

Now it was her turn to grind her teeth. “There was no reason for you to be late. If you were a normal man—which I’ve learned in the past few weeks you’re not—you’d carry a pocket watch with you. But since you haven’t an ounce of normalcy or sanity, I shouldn’t have expected so much from you.”

“I told you, it’s broken,” he bellowed so loud she was certain he could be heard all the way to London.

“That’s not my fault,” she said hotly.

He looked like he was going to say something further, but instead he leaned back and pressed his head against the squabs, raking his fingers through his hair.

She wanted to yell at him again. She wanted to tear him to shreds. She was mad he’d been late. She was mad he’d teased and goaded her into making herself look bad in front of her family. She was mad he’d made a joke out of her. But if she were being honest with herself, she knew she was most mad quite simply because he’d forgotten her. Twice.

He’d forgotten about her this morning when he neglected to bring her water for a bath and had left with only a one line note telling her he’d see her at her uncle’s. Then, he’d forgotten her again when he was two hours late getting to her uncle’s. And as petty as it might sound, she was hurt.