Her question hit him hard, and there was no way in hell he was going to answer it. She was too insolent, too prying, and it made no difference to the situation.
“Have you ever loved anyone?” she persisted, undaunted by his scowling silence. “Have you never been jealous?”
Up until a few days ago, he would have answered unequivocally no to both questions—until he’d been saved by an infuriating, prying, frustrating, arousing, exciting Frenchwoman with a basket of potatoes.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t about to answer her question. “Whether or not my love has been given or received is none of your business, Miss Bergerine.”
“If I had not been attacked because of you, I would agree that your affairs are none of mine,” she agreed. “But I was, and if you are an expert in the courtroom, you are obviously not an expert on love. Nor can you see into a person’s heart.
“I find it easy to believe that whatever you may have thought of your affair or her feelings, at least one of your amours has loved you passionately, certainly enough to be fiercely jealous and wish to do you harm. If she thinks I have taken her place, she would want me dead, too. And a rich woman usually gets what she wants.”
This was ludicrous. He would know if any of his lovers bore him such animosity. “Fortunately, I can see into a person’s heart, Miss Bergerine, or as good as. That’s why I’m so adept at my profession. That’s why I always win. So I am quite confident none of my former lovers is involved in these attacks.”
“If you are so good at reading the human heart, monsieur le barrister, what am I thinking now?”
Damn stupid question.
Except… what was she thinking? And was it about him, or another man? Buggy? Allan Gerrard? Gad, she might be thinking about Millstone for all Drury could tell. He’d never met anyone more obtuse.
Yet there were other times when her emotions were written on her face as plainly as words on a page. Was it any wonder she was the most infuriating, fascinating woman he’d ever met?
“Well, Sir Douglas? What am I thinking?” she repeated.
He guessed. He was good at guessing—making assumptions on the merest shred of evidence and pressing until the full truth was revealed, even if it wasn’t always exactly what he thought it would be. “I think you’re very pleased with yourself, because you think you understand women better than I.”
He remembered the way she’d stroked that leaf and noted the little flush coloring her soft cheeks. And because she seemed to want to tear his secrets from him, he would not hold back. “I think you’re feeling desire, too—a desire you don’t want to acknowledge.”
Juliette laughed. Juliette Bergerine, a Frenchwoman in England with hardly a penny to her name, laughed in Sir Douglas Drury’s face.
“You are only guessing, monsieur le barrister,” she chided, “and you are wrong. While I cannot deny you have a certain appeal, you are not the sort of man who arouses my passion.”
He had felt the sting of rejection before. He knew it well and intimately. When he was a child, and even during her fatal illness, his mother had often sent him away. Although his late father had inherited a considerable fortune, he always claimed to have business to attend to. Drury had suspected that had often been an excuse to avoid both his wife and his son, whom he seemed to consider no more than an additional nuisance. Neither one of his parents had possessed the devotion or temperament for parenthood. Over time, Drury had come to believe he was immune to such barbs, only to discover here and now that he was not.
“So you see, you could be just as wrong about your lovers,” she continued, speaking with decisive confidence, oblivious to the pain she’d caused. “Therefore, Sir Douglas, I believe we must not hide and wait and hope our enemy will show herself. We must force her to take action. I should not remain cloistered here. I must go out and about—and you must tell everyone we are to be married. For if there is one thing that will drive a rejected lover to distraction, it will be the notion that her usurper has achieved the greatest prize of all, a wedding ring.”
Drury could think of a thousand things wrong with that idea—well, two, but they were vital. “People have been told you’re my cousin.”
“So? Do cousins not marry in this country?”
Gad. “And if this does tempt our enemy to act—provided the same person is responsible for both attacks—you will be in danger.”
“These men you hire, this MacDougal person—could they not protect us and capture our enemy if we are attacked again?”
“It’s too risky.”
“But we must do something. The search does not progress, and I do not want to impose upon Lord Bromwell for much longer.”
She was worried about imposing on Buggy? “He can afford it.”
“Then you wish to continue this charade? What if it is weeks, or months?”
Weeks or months of returning to a comfortable house with Juliette waiting, sitting by the hearth with her bright eyes and busy fingers, her vibrant presence like a flame to warm him.
He must be losing his mind. Too many hours alone in that cell, waiting to be killed. Or perhaps he’d caught some tropical disease from one of the plants or specimens Buggy was always showing him. Or that blow to the head had been worse than he’d thought, because the vivacious Juliette, with her outrageous ideas, would never bring him the serenity he sought.
Indeed, life with her would never be placid.
She regarded him steadily, her mind quite clearly made up. “I have no wish to live forever in a gilded cage. I have always had work to occupy my time, even if it was not always pleasant. My room was terrible—that I know. But it was mine. Here, I am like one of Lord Bromwell’s spiders, trapped in a jar. The jar may be clean, it may be safer than the jungle, but the spider soon dies for want of fresh air.”
So she should go. Be free and leave him. “If you wish to go, I’ll arrange for your protection for as long as you feel it necessary.”
“I am not so ungrateful as that!” she exclaimed. At last her steadfast gaze faltered and her voice became a little less assured. “I could not depart thinking you were still in danger when I can help you flush out your enemy.”
Was he supposed to believe she cared about him? After everything she’d said to him? “Proclaiming we are to be married is a foolish, dangerous idea. It’s also useless, because no former lover of mine is out to kill us. However, if you chafe at this life, you are free to go as soon as I’ve arranged protection for you.”
Her expression unmistakably stubborn, Juliette threw herself onto another wrought-iron chair. “Non,” she said, crossing her arms. “I am not your guest. I am Lord Bromwell’s, and he has told me I may stay. So voilà, I stay.”
“The hell you will!” Gad, she was infuriating! “As for saying we’re engaged—”
The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted him. Millstone stood at the door of the conservatory, his face scarlet. “If you please, Sir Douglas, the dressmaker has arrived with the garments for Miss Bergerine. She’s waiting in the morning room.”
“Oh, how delightful!” Juliette cried, jumping up as if everything was wonderful. “And now you will be able to take me to the theater, and Vauxhall, and all the other places in London I have heard about. Is it any wonder I agreed to marry you, my darling, despite your terrible temper?”
Millstone’s eyes looked about to drop right out of his head.
“You weren’t supposed to say anything,” Drury growled through clenched teeth, as furious