“Thank you—”
“Mellie!” Ronnie exclaimed, backing toward the edge of the brick. Mellie would have continued the charade longer, but the other five people in the area were listening with great attention.
“Ronnie, my father takes to his bed when he’s upset.You’rethe one who paces all night long. Which means you made up my father’s illness out of whole cloth—”
“He’sworriedabout you! We all are!”
Trevor stepped forward with a low growl. “You should be worried I don’t kill you—”
“Good God,stopit!” If they hadn’t caught everyone’s attention before, Mellie’s bellow certainly did now. “Why does everyone keep threatening to have duels? Is this some London infection of which I’m unaware?”
Both men turned to her, equal expressions of outrage on their faces. “It’s how gentlemen express their most vehement displeasure,” Ronnie said stiffly.
Trevor started to nod and then abruptly seemed to catch himself. “It’s…it’s a silly, empty threat. I shouldn’t have used it. I beg your pardon.”
Ronnie turned to Trevor, his eyes narrowed. “It’s not an empty threat with me.”
Mellie sniffed. “And that’s why I’ll never marry you, Ronnie. Because you have no sense.”
Ronnie stepped closer, and for the first time in the conversation, the light fell full on his face. What she saw there stunned her. He looked…haggard. There were bags under his eyes and a gaunt look to his haphazardly shaved face. Even his clothes were wrinkled, though he’d obviously made some attempt to fit into her ball. He was in his best attire even if it hung awkwardly on him.
“Ronnie? What has happened to you?”
He looked down at himself and then shrugged. “I fell in love, Mellie, you know that. And now you’re engaged to him, and it’s all wrong. Why can’t you see that? He’s all wrong for you.”
“Why? Because he’s going to be a duke? Because he’s a man of science, and I adore science?”
“Because he will bring out the madness in you. With me, I am the mad one, and you are forced to be sane. With him…” He held up his hands beseechingly. “Your worst impulses will claim you. Tell me that you haven’t been dreaming of doing things you know you ought not.”
The problem with Ronnie—aside from his obvious romantic delusions—was that he’d known her from childhood. He knew just the words to say to strike deep at her heart. To make her question everything she believed about herself.
She had been thinking—almost constantly—of giving in to her baser desires. Of doing things with Trevor that she knew respectable women did not. So in that, he was absolutely correct. And while she was still grappling with her cousin’s words, Trevor released a snort of disgust.
“You know nothing of this woman you pretend to adore. You don’t know what she wants, what she needs, or even what would make her happy. Do you think this—” He gestured to the growing group of people collecting on the terrace. “This public display will make her happy? Romantic gestures disgust her, and you live by them. Can you not understand the truth? You. Disgust. Her.”
Well, that was putting it a bit too strongly. Or maybe not. Maybe deep down, everything her cousin represented—the exhausting emotions, the grand romantic gestures, the aggrandizement of his own personal dramatics—truly did disgust her. And that he came here with a make-believe statement of her father’s health, professing to worry about her own madness put the final cap on her fury.
Meanwhile, Ronnie had heard Trevor’s words, gone deathly pale, and dropped to his knees before her. “Do you not see?” he said with a gasp. How he could gasp and make himself heard was beyond her, but he must have practiced it. “He separated you from those who love you the most. You are filled with emotions that are not your own. And now, he publicly decries me. I am your cousin! I love you! Mellie, come back to your senses before it is too late!”
She almost did it. She almost gave into her growing fury and resorted to violence. After all, fisticuffs were all that seemed to get through his brain. But in the end, she knew she had a more potent weapon at her disposal. After all, he’d cast her in the role of a princess in need of rescue. But she could just as easily be the evil queen. So she’d fully embrace the role.
It began with a discounting of his feelings for her. That always insulted him. “You only think you love me. I’m easy for you. You have never had to do anything hard to win me.”
“That’s a lie! Every day without you is agony!”
“That’s laziness, Ronnie. What have youdonebut write poetry to me? I’m sure I could have four men in the ballroom composing sonnets to me before supper.”
Trevor nodded. “A dozen at least. Shall I make a list?”
Ronnie was not impressed. “Bah! Sonnets.”
She waited. He would get there in a moment, she was sure of it.
“Very well,” he huffed, “if you discount my poetry—my epic poetry written in iambic pentameter—then give me something else to do. Let me prove my worth.”
She waited a moment more. He would say the word. She only had to wait a moment more…
“Give me a quest.”