Page 2 of Marigold and the Marquess
The skull darted out of the rhododendron and leaped into his forsythia.
The lovely Miss Farthingale moaned, squirmed out of his grasp again, and was about to plunge head first into the forsythia when he stopped her by wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her solidly up against him. “I forbid you to destroy my flower beds.”
She turned to face him, frowning up at him. “Sir, I shall never catch him if you insist on holding me back.”
He was no coxcomb, but women usually enjoyed being in his arms. This young woman was paying absolutely no attention to this fact, nor did she seem to care he was a marquess. Instead, she cast him a look of irritation before peering over his shoulder to shout at the now barking skull. “Bad dog! Oh, you are a very bad dog, Mallow!”
Leo sighed and waited for her dog– a little fellow who could be no bigger than the size of a squirrel– to dart past them again. “Mallow, sit!” he commanded in his most authoritative voice.
The skull immediately came to a halt on the grass beside them.
“Well done,” Marigold said, now casting him the softest smile before kneeling beside thisthingthat appeared to be a head but not of any creature Leo recognized. She popped it off Mallow and then sank down on the lawn and tucked her legs beneath her shapely bottom.
She took both her dog and that bizarre oddity onto her lap.
Mallow turned out to be a little spaniel with a big attitude.
He growled as Leo knelt beside him and his mistress.
Leo shot him a look of caution to establish that he was the dominant male in this relation. Fortunately, the dog quickly acquiesced. “We shall become good friends, you little knave,” he said, giving Mallow a gentle rub to his belly before turning his attention to the exquisite girl. “Would you mind explaining what that was all about?”
She graced him with another soft smile. “Have you heard of the Huntsford Academy?”
“Yes, Huntsford is a friend of mine.”
“His wife, Duchess Adela, is a very good friend of mine, and this is one of the relics from her Devonshire dig. I helped unearth it. In fact, I just returned from there this morning with a crateful of bones I must deliver to the academy as soon as my aunt and uncle return from visiting their daughter, Dillie. Thursdays are her ‘at home’ days. Well, she is Duchess Dillie, the Duke of Edgeware’s wife. Do you know them?”
He nodded. “Edgeware and I are quite well acquainted.”
“Is it not odd?” She absently petted Mallow who was now licking himself obscenely while sprawled on her lap.
Leo stifled a grin. “What do you mean?”
The sun shone down upon both of them and a light breeze carried the scent of lilac in the air. The girl cast him another smile, and he realized this was her naturally cheerful repose when she was not chattering or thinking of pressing thoughts.
It did not surprise him that Marigold was a happy soul. Yet, she did not appear to be the empty-headed sort to prattle incessantly.
That was a point in her favor.
Leo could not abide people who would not stop talking simply because they liked to hear the sound of their voice. Hers was quite pleasant, not that it should matter to him.
So was the lovely shape of her lips, not that this should matter, either.
Mallow paused in his preening to growl at him again.
Oh, that little hound knew what he was thinking.
Marigold was obviously too innocent to understand the surprising need she stirred in him, and had not a clue how tempting she looked.
Her hair was dark, the color of black satin.
And those eyes, that deep azure of the sea.
She smiled up at him yet again. “We know several people in common but have never met each other until this very moment. Do you not find it curious?”
“No, I have not been in London for a while.”
“Are you back now to stay? Since you mentioned this was your home, I assume you are the Marquess of Muir, Leonides Poole.”
