Page 36 of The Defiant One
"Oh? Do you mean being found on the floor with me in the final throes of passion isn't enough?"
Celsie blushed. "He wouldn't . . ."
"Trust me, madam, he would. And as for me, all he has to do is say one word to the right people and my chances of getting into the Royal Society are ruined. I can't risk the scandal, and if you want to continue to move in high circles so that you can beg the plight of your precious dogs, neither can you."
Celsie pressed her lips together in rising anger. He was the most impossible man, equally given to flashes of temper and random gestures of kindness. Just when she was starting to warm up to him, he turned on her like a badly bred cur. She was getting tired of his short, one-word answers, his ill manners, his brusque treatment. She knew he was capable of being nice; she'd seen glimpses of it in his laboratory, when she had taken an interest in his work and he'd shown her the drawings. That Andrew was a whole lot easier to handle than this hostile, bad-tempered, bristling one. That Andrew was actually quite pleasant and engaging. This one . . . She knew German guard dogs with better temperaments.
"There has got to be a way out of this predicament," she said. "If you're going to sit there and sulk, at least do something. You're the intellectual here. Why don't you put that superior brain of yours to work, sir, and engineer a plan to save us both from a fate that neither of us wants?"
"I can assure you, madam, that I have been putting my so-called superior brain to work on that very problem since we entered the coach, and so far it has yielded nothing of value."
"Ah. So you can design flying machines and double-compartmented coaches and write complicated mathematical formulas that no one but yourself could ever hope to understand, but you cannot outmaneuver your brother."
"That is because it is far easier to design flying machines and write complicated mathematical formulas than it is to outmaneuver my brother."
"So you think he's somehow behind all this, then."
"Don't you?" he fumed, nailing her with a look of hard fury.
Of course she did. The look on the duke's face right after she had thrown herself between him and Gerald had removed all doubt from her mind that he was behind it. Oh, what a mess this was! If Andrew, with all his intelligence and years of dealing with Lucien, couldn't figure a way out of this dilemma, how on earth was she going to do it?
"Andrew —"
"Look, I said I just want to be left alone, all right?"
"You don't have to be so hateful. And I'm sorry I interfered with the duel, but I had to save Gerald. Had it been your brother whose life was in peril, you would have done the same."
"Depends on which brother," he bit out, his eyes hard as he glared out the window.
That did it. Celsie wasn't going to lay here against him a second longer. She started to push herself up on one hand, only to freeze on a hiss of pain. She looked down and saw the bloody sleeve where Gerald's blade had caught her, a sleeve previously hidden beneath the angle of her body against Andrew's own.
Andrew saw it too. "Devil take it," he muttered, pushing her back down onto his lap. "Let me see that."
She snatched her arm away, covering the wound with her hand so she couldn't see it and risk fainting all over again. "No."
"Does it hurt?"
"It does now that I've been reminded of it."
"Here, let me see it."
"Your concern is quite touching, but if you don't mind, I would prefer to have a qualified surgeon look at it, not a mad inventor."
"And I would prefer that you leave the 'mad' out of your estimation of me, madam," he snapped, on a fresh wave of unprecedented anger. "I may not have had any formal training in the healing arts, but I can assure you that bandaging your arm is well within my capabilities."
"You're not a doctor."
"I am a doctor. Just not of medicine."
"Of what, then?"
"Philosophy."
"Oh, well, that's helpful, isn't it?"
"Celsiana, let me see your arm. Now."
"Oh, very well then," she muttered, uncovering her arm and looking away so she couldn't see how bad it was. "Though what you intend to use as a bandage is beyond me."
