“What on earth are you doing?” He dodged another smack, moving deeper into the gardens. He stumbled over a clump of daisies and narrowly missed a collision with a rosebush.
She chased him, still swinging away. “I want a duel.”
“A duel?”
“I know all about you and Mrs. Lange, you . . . you rutting . . .” Apparently lacking either the imagination or the bravery to complete the insult, she moved on. “I never liked you, I hope you know. I’ve always known you for a worthless bounder, but now my mother and sisters will suffer the pain of the revelation. You’ll have disappointed their hopes.”
Ah. So that’s what this was about. He was being made to answer for . . . for what, precisely? Flirting?
“Diana has no father or brothers to defend her honor. The duty falls to me.” She slapped him across the face again. “Name your seconds.”
“Good God. Will you stop with the glove?” He ripped the thing from her hand and tossed it into the thorny rosebushes. “I’m not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel.”
“Why not? Because I’m a woman?”
“No, because I’ve seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You’d shoot me dead where I stood.” Colin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, calm down. I haven’t touched your sister. Not in any improper way.”
“Perhaps you haven’t touched her improperly, but you’ve improperly led her on.”
“Led her on? Perhaps I danced and flirted with her a bit, but I’ve flirted with every young lady in this village.”
“Not every young lady.”
He paused, stunned. As he stared at her, he felt a grin nudging his cheeks. “So you’re jealous.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she replied, much too quickly to be credible.
“You are.” He wagged a finger at her, no longer on the retreat. “You’re jealous. I’ve flirted with every young lady in the village but you, and you’re envious.”
“I’m not envious, I just . . .” She made a gesture of frustration. “I just want to hurt you. The way you hurt my sister.”
The way he’d hurt her, she meant. If Diana Highwood had suffered one moment of pain on his account, Colin would swallow a Chinese dazzler. But this one . . . she was hurt.
Well, exactly how did she expect him to flirt with her? Lines like “river of silk” and “sparkling diamonds” would never work on a woman like this. She was too clever by half. Moreover, such comparisons would be wildly inaccurate. Her hair was nothing like silk, and her dark eyes bore no resemblance to diamonds.
Cooled volcanic glass, perhaps.
“Listen,” he said in a placating tone. “It’s not like that, Melinda. You are a tolerably pretty girl.”
“Tolerably.” She rolled her eyes and made a dismissive noise. “Tolerably pretty. What kind of compliment is that? And my name’s not Melinda.”
“No, not tolerably pretty,” he said, tilting his head for a better look. “Genuinely so. If only you’d . . .”
“Don’t say it. Everyone says it.”
“Everyone says what?”
She spoke in a low, mimicking tone. “ ‘If only you’d remove your spectacles, you’d be lovely.’ ”
“I wasn’t going to stay that,” he lied. “Why would I say that? What a perfectly stupid thing to say.”
“I know you’re lying. You dissemble as easily as you breathe. But my feelings aren’t at issue here. This is about your cruel misuse of Diana.”
“I assure you, I’ve not come close to using your sister, cruelly or otherwise. I apologized for all that business at the tea shop.”
“Oh yes. You apologized quite prettily. You made them believe you were decent. That you cared. And then you took up with a married woman.”
Colin rubbed the back of his neck. He really didn’t have time for this. He had fireworks to set, a cannon to mount, and a lamb to catch. “I don’t know what you hope to gain by pursuing this conversation. I tell you now, I won’t offer marriage. Not to your sister, not to anyone.”
“Hmph. I’d never allow you to marry her.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I want justice! I want you to be responsible for your actions, instead of always weaseling out of them with a few pretty words.”
Do you see? Colin wanted to say. This is why I avoid you. It was as if those spectacles gave her the power to see straight through him.
“You’re starting to sound like my cousin,” he said. “I do hope you’re not planning to give me the same treatment you gave him.”
She stared at him a moment. “What an excellent idea.” With a swift, swooping motion of her arm, she drew back her reticule and let it fly.
Colin flinched just in time to take the blow on his shoulder, rather than his crown. Still, the cinched velvet purse landed with surprising force. Pain exploded through his shoulder. “What the devil is in that thing? Rocks?”
“What else?”
What else, indeed. How could he have forgotten her ridiculous obsession with geology? Vile harpy. “Listen, Marissa . . .”