Page 18 of The Viscount and the Vixen
“Not a single relative who would care that you’re now a viscountess?”
“Nary a one.”
Then who the devil did she want to impress? Not that she wasn’t gaining plenty for herself. Perhaps that was enough, that it was all about her. Her and her child. She wanted any future children to whom she gave birth to have advantages. With him as their father, they certainly would.
“Lord Marsden—” she began.
“You must call me Father,” he interrupted.
“I couldn’t be so presumptuous.”
“We’re related now. I insist.”
She bowed her head slightly as though acquiescing, but he didn’t believe for a single moment that she really was giving in to his father’s request. She was simply striving to avoid an argument during dinner. Fast learner, his wife.
“I wondered if you might be kind enough to tell me a little bit about Locksley as a lad.”
Why the devil would she ask him to do that?
Cackling, his father leaned back in his chair. “Did he not let you have your turn at an inquisition? No, I suspect he didn’t.”
Taking another sip of wine, Locke studied Portia, trying to gauge her angle, what she was after. It bothered him immensely that she seemed genuinely interested. She didn’t care about him, so what was to be gained by learning anything at all about his past?
“He didn’t like to wear shoes,” his father told her. “People thought I neglected him because he was always running about barefoot, but he simply refused to keep his shoes on.”
“I liked the feel of grass beneath my soles,” he felt obligated to admit. “Besides, it’s easier to climb in bare feet.”
“Ah, yes, he was a little monkey. Climbed everything. Trees, ladders. I once found him crouched near the ceiling in my library. Nearly gave me an apoplectic fit. He had somehow wedged himself in the corner and worked his way up. He was only about three. If he’d fallen... I still break out in a sweat when I think about that horrendous outcome. Once I got him safely down, I thrashed him to within an inch of his life. I regretted it afterward, was afraid I’d put an end to his sense of adventure. A week later he was clambering up the shelves.”
She scrutinized him with such intensity that he wanted to shift in his chair. Instead he downed more wine. He didn’t want her figuring him out, deciphering him, knowing the details of his upbringing. Nothing was to be gained. As far as he was concerned they needed no words at all spoken between them.
“Weren’t you frightened to be up so high?” she asked.
“I don’t remember the incident at all.”
“But you remember climbing?”
“Trees, outer walls. Wherever I could get a hand- or a foothold.”
“Do you still climb?” She sounded truly interested, which added to his guilt, as he was interested in only one thing from her.
“On one of my journeys I scaled a small mountain. Climbing has its uses.”I’ll be climbing over you before the night is done.She suddenly blushed, and he wondered if she’d read his thoughts. “Perhaps I’ll take you climbing sometime.”
“I’d like that. I climbed trees when I was a girl. Enjoyed hiding out. I was a bit of a hoyden.”
“From whom were you hiding?”
She laughed lightly. “Oh, you know, playing games, hide-and-seek, that sort of thing.”
Based on the way she didn’t hold his gaze, he wasn’t certain games were at all involved. What did it matter? Why were they discussing this? He didn’t want to know about her childhood, her past, or anything else. He didn’t want to see her as a little girl with braids, hiking up her skirts and clambering up a tree.
What mattered now was that she was out for gain, and because of that, he’d begun his day a bachelor and ended it a husband—who had yet to fully sample the wares.
She turned her attention back to his father. “Did you climb trees, my lord?”
“Linnie was sitting in a tree when I met her. She was the climber. Coaxed me up. Dared me actually. Called me a coward. I had to show her, I tell you. So up I went. From our perch we watched as the night fell. It was so beautiful. With her I saw it as I never had before, recognized the majesty of it. But then it was time to go home. And I froze. I was all right as long as I was looking up. Looking down made my gut churn.”
“How did you get down?” Portia asked.
