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pucker appeared in her brow. “That is odd. I should not have thought Abonville would misunderstand. His English is excellent. Or have you changed your mind about getting married? I do wish you would explain, my lord. It is very difficult to respond sensibly to a situation when one is so utterly in the dark.”
    “I did not change my mind,” he said, beating back an insane urge to smooth the furrow from her young—too young—brow. “I vaguely remember Abonville’s and your grandmother’s visit—whenever it was—and his explaining how he and I were cousins about a thousand times removed. That’s all I remember, and it’s amazing I recall so much, considering I had swilled about a gallon of laudanum shortly before he arrived.”
    Her expression cleared. “Oh, I do see now. Some individuals become extremely docile under the influence of opiates. You must have amiably agreed with every word they said—and all the while you had no idea what they were talking about.”
    Thunder grumbled in the distance, and black clouds were massing above their heads. She appeared to heed the threatening weather not at all. She only watched him with quiet concentration. The steady green perusal was stirring a dangerous yearning in his breast. He beat that back, too.
    “I tried to explain,” he said stiffly, “but he refused to listen to me.”
    “I am not surprised,” she said. “He was sure to think the Rawnsley he encountered the first time was relatively sane—because that Rawnsley sensibly agreed with everything Abonville said. Today, when you disagreed, he was bound to ascribe it to a temporary fit of insanity.”
    “The thought has crossed my mind,” he muttered.
    “Many people respond to seemingly irrational behavior in the same way,” she said. “Instead of listening to what you said, he probably tried to drum rationality into you by repeating his point over and over, as one drums the multiplication tables into children. Even medical experts, who ought to know better, believe this is an ‘enlightened’ way of dealing with individuals in an agitated state.”
    She wrinkled her pointy nose. “It is most annoying. No wonder you lost your patience and dashed off.”
    “That was a mistake, all the same,” he said. “I should have stayed and reasoned with him.”
    “Waste of breath,” she said briskly. “Your mental balance is in doubt. The explanation must come from one whose sanity is not doubted. I will explain to him, and he will listen to me.”
    She paused, looking about her. “The storm is not rushing upon us as quickly as I expected. For once, Providence shows some consideration. I should have hated going back without having the least idea what was wrong. Not that I am altogether happy with the answer. Still, one cannot hold a man to a promise made when he was not properly in his senses.”
    Bertie had said she wasn’t the moping sort. Even so, the faint note of resignation in her voice made Dorian feel guilty. She had saved his life. Though he wasn’t at all sure he’d wanted to be saved, he could appreciate the courage and efficiency with which she’d acted. She’d also calmed him. She’d listened. She’d understood.
    He looked away, wondering how much of an explanation he owed her and how much he could trust himself to utter.
    A jagged branch of fire darted over a distant ridge. The heavens rumbled.
    He brought his gaze back to her. “Does it not strike you as . . . morbid?” he asked. “That I should take a wife, now of all times?”
    She shrugged. “I can understand how it might seem so to you. Yet it is not much different than a decrepit old man marrying a young woman, which happens often enough.”
    It did happen, Dorian knew. Such a marriage meant a few months, perhaps a few years, of catering to a drooling invalid. The reward of a wealthy widowhood and independence more than compensated, evidently.
    He was hardly the one to revile a woman for acting out of greed. It wasn’t as