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“You’re a fat-wit.” She swung around, resting the parasol handle on her collarbone, presenting him with a big black dome. She spoke to the roses on the wall. “My parents are awful people.”
Look what they produced.
“Don’t think you’d be welcomed with open arms.” She gave a broken laugh. “They won’t see it as gaining a son. They’ll see it as losing a duchess. My title is the only thing they have to show for decades of striving, and conniving, and stealing, and . . .” Her throat constricted.
Selling their souls.
“I don’t expect or need them to embrace me.” Neal lifted the parasol gently, higher and higher. She released the handle and felt the rush of air as he cast the black silk contraption aside. His fingers wrapped her shoulder. She turned from the roses. She would always prefer his face to flora.
“I want to know them,” he said. “So I can know you more fully.”
“And love me less.” She bit her lip. She’d imagined it would start with his family, the diminution of his love, but it could just as well start with hers.
“Never,” he said. “I can help with—”
“You can help by leaving it alone,” she snapped, and he took a deep breath.
“I will,” he said. “For as long as you want.”
She almost looked away from the brightness in his eyes.
“There isn’t long, though,” he said. “For other things.” He tipped back his head, gazing up at the blue sky. “Today is St. John’s Day. Midsummer.”
Her lungs folded up inside her chest.
“You’re missing the celebration,” she rasped. “Golowan.”
His mother’s last. That was what he’d said to Tomas and Kelyn. He was missing it because of her.
“It goes until St. Peter’s Day.” He sensed her agitation and his mouth softened into a smile. “I haven’t missed it. I’ll leave for Penzance on Monday. I wanted to see you before I left.” His smile widened. “To ask you to come with me. There will be barrels aplenty, but they’ll be tar barrels, all ablaze in the streets. We do our dancing with linked arms around the bonfires, the whole parish. Jenni and Johannes, her husband, always bring rockets and fire wheels.”
“I can’t.” She stared at him. Her scalp itched beneath the cap. She felt sweaty, clammy, distinctly unwell. “How would I explain it?”
“You’re imaginative.” He lifted his brows. “And who’s to stop you going?”
No one. No one but her. She had to stop herself.
His mother’s last Golowan. And he wanted to turn up with a flibbertigibbet of the first water. Maybe he saw her differently. His mother wouldn’t. She’d be devastated.
She shook her head. “Cranbrook’s son. He’ll be moving into Harcott House. And we have another meeting with the solicitor, on Wednesday.”
“Ah.” Neal rocked back on his heels. “I didn’t realize you were so averse to canceling appointments.”
She flushed. His speech was rarely barbed.
“My husband, a duke, died not two weeks ago,” she said. “I have myriad obligations. You know that.”
His jaw muscles had flexed. His cheekbones stood out like boulders.
She bent to pick up her parasol, then stood in its little circle of shade, looking at his silly shoes, and the white hose clinging to his muscular calves and the bottoms of the knickerbockers.
“I know that you would sacrifice to become my wife,” he said quietly.
She raised her eyes. He thought she shied away from sacrifice when she was trying to do just that.
“Not financially,” he went on. “I haven’t explained, formally, my situation, but I’m, Christ. I’m a wealthy man. I don’t have the way of wealth. Much of the time, it makes my skin crawl. But insofar as I can put the money to good uses, I’m grateful. I would give every penny to anyone in my family, or yours. Your mother, your father. I will provide for them. You’ll have a study in Truro where you can work on your bloodthirsty novelizing, until the cows come home.” His lips tugged in a smile that faded, leaving his face again with that stark look.
“You told me you were Lavinia, just Lavinia. You told me that you didn’t want your father’s name, or your husband’s.” He drew a breath and held it several beats longer than she expected.
