Amidst the flying feathers and squawks, Paul pointed a finger right at his face. “I speak as your friend and not your sworn man now. Don’t. If you want the sister to have cause to deny you, that is the best. If you want the King to reduce you to the smallest of men, that will do it. Nothing but trouble there, and you know it.”

Marcus laughed. “Hell, but that’s the truth. Still, I find myself not sleeping well these days.”

“Then take a servant or call a woman to come from the town. Or better yet, get on with wooing the one you are intended to bed.”

Marcus abruptly turned their talk to other things. The last thing he wanted to discuss was the wooing. Paul had helped him plan his gentle assault on Genith as thoroughly as a military campaign, since Paul had a natural talent for such things.

Unfortunately, Paul did not have to execute the strategy, Marcus did.

It wasn’t going so well.

He himself had no talent with such things. The kind of pursuit learned by poor boys in London was very different from what noblewomen expected. Later, during his visits to court, he saw how the game was played but felt stupid when he attempted it himself.

Fortunately there had been enough ladies who made it easy, and did not require much wooing at all. Some actually seemed to find his lack of courtly skills charming. His lovers at Anglesmore had been much the same way, women who let him know they were willing and who did not expect him to plead and cajole.

He preferred it that way. He liked bold women. Experienced ones. Women who did not expect to be talked out of their virtue with poetry and lies. The kind of women who accepted sensual pleasure as a joy, and who did not think it shameful. He had little interest in the ones who denied their desires. He had no patience at all with the ones who yielded but later fretted about having sinned.

“It is time to take her to the town and show her off. The people are curious anyway, and you can buy her gifts,” Paul said, forcing the conversation back to the grand plan and reminding him of the next step.

“Tomorrow, if the weather is fair, I intend to do that.”

Marcus wasn’t sure that he actually said the response that ran in his mind. Just then Nesta walked by again, heading to the garden, and for that brief span of time she was the only thing that existed.

He found himself strolling after her.

Paul hurried to catch up. “What in hell are you doing?”

“I am just going to tell her that I will take Genith to the town tomorrow.”

Paul threw up his hands. “You are mad. I am sworn to a madman.”