Housemaid Heiress. Elizabeth Beacon

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СКАЧАТЬ of this man’s determination to get his own way by fair means or foul, Thea raised her brows sceptically in the useful gesture she had learnt from her bitter enemy. He flashed her an unrepentant grin, then distracted her from thinking about the leap of her heart that it had caused her by bending down to sniff the wound.

      ‘According to his long-suffering doctor, if it starts to smell sweet I’m to get him to a sawbones as fast as I can tie him to his horse and force him there. Otherwise the damn fool stands as much chance of keeping his beloved arm as he might if he had had the sense to stay in bed in the first place.’

      ‘In other words, he’s getting better?’

      ‘So I concluded, but when he fainted on me tonight I began to think he was as big an idiot as his physician.’

      ‘And instead he’s just a run-of-the-mill idiot?’

      He chuckled. ‘Nothing about Mad Nick is commonplace.’

      ‘Nevertheless you are very fond of him, I think?’

      ‘Maybe,’ he said, but Thea had seen his affection for his relative in his actions tonight and perhaps he thought it was too late to pretend to mere duty. ‘We both suffered for our respective mothers’ sins, so I understand him better than most, I suppose.’

      ‘I don’t see how you could be made to suffer for your mother’s deeds.’ She forced bitterness into her voice by remembering her grandfather and his twin brother, abandoned on the doorstep of the foundling hospital.

      ‘Oh, we weren’t, at least not in the way you must have been. Anyway, I must get this mess cleaned and rebandaged, so, for the sake of Nick’s sensibilities, perhaps you could water the horses and give him freedom to swear like one of his troopers? Not even he can sleep through that, and you will inhibit him sadly.’

      She hesitated, fighting her fear of the dark wood.

      ‘Take this if it’ll make you feel better,’ he offered, handing her an evil-looking pistol, which she examined as if it might bite. ‘It’s loaded, so just draw this back and pull the trigger when you’re close enough to disable your quarry.’

      Thea gulped as she contemplated actually using a gun on her fellow man. Even if Granby was lurking out there in the darkness, she would not be able to shoot him, so she pulled back from it with horror.

      ‘Couldn’t I scream for you?’

      ‘It might be too late by the time I find you, but since this is England and black night I dare say you’ll be safe enough.’

      ‘Yes, I dare say,’ she said, with the oddest feeling of disappointment she had ever suffered in her life because he didn’t think her worth protecting.

      ‘Well, then, if you would not mind, Miss…We appear to have omitted to introduce ourselves. The gentleman on the floor is Captain Nicholas Prestbury of the 10th Hussars and I am Major Marcus Ashfield of the 95th Rifles and at your service, ma’am,’ he said with a half-mocking bow.

      She bobbed him a perfunctory curtsy, copied from those long-suffering maids at Hardy House. ‘Hetty Smith, Major,’ she lied.

      ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Smith.’

      ‘I doubt that, sir.’

      ‘How did you come to that conclusion, my dear?’ he asked, acute interest suddenly lighting his dark gaze.

      ‘I ain’t your dear.’

      ‘Odd how that accent of yours comes and goes, is it not?’ he mused and Thea cursed her own carelessness, even as she wondered how she could explain her lapses.

      ‘Now then, children, I’m not up to playing referee,’ a weak voice chided from the floor where the sufferer lay.

      ‘The devil—how long have you been awake?’

      ‘Long enough, Marco, long enough.’

      ‘You always had peculiar ideas of entertainment.’

      ‘I hail from a peculiar family.’

      ‘And are commonly considered the pinnacle of our eccentricity.’

      ‘I don’t usually waste time interrogating pretty girls in the middle of the night, so I could argue with that, were I feeling up to it.’

      ‘No doubt you soon will be, so if you will excuse us, Miss Smith?’

      ‘You’ll come if I scream?’

      ‘Trust me,’ he said with a rueful smile that did something to her heartbeat.

      Dazed, Thea went out into the night without her usual feeling of dread dogging her every step. She doubted Granby’s thugs would be a match for her tall rifleman and his fearsome artillery, so at least tonight she was unlikely to be captured and forced up the aisle.

      Murmuring soft endearments to reassure the nervous black charger, she carefully untied his reins. The stream ran only yards from the back of the hut and she knew Marcus would never have sent her out here if he thought there was the faintest degree of danger, but he was not to know what devils stalked her footsteps.

      She caught herself thinking that, if only some of the lords Grandfather lured to Hardy House had been more like him, she might have wed before Granby’s mother realised what an opportunity was going a-begging. Anyway, the Major wasn’t a lord, so there was no earthly reason why he should want to marry her. If she did not wed a titled man, her fortune would be tied up so tightly only her grandchildren would receive more than a pittance.

      Now her reputation was so comprehensively ruined, no self-respecting gentleman would marry Miss Alethea Hardy, and she instinctively knew Major Ashfield was one of those. All she could hope for was to stay out of the Winfordes’ reach until her twenty-first birthday, then live in obscurity on her hundred a year. It was so much less than her once-grand expectations that she almost sat down and cried.

      By the time she had repeated the process of gently leading a horse to water and letting him drink with Hercules, she was resolved to be on her way as soon as dawn lightened the way.

      

      ‘I was beginning to think you a figment of my fevered imagination,’ Nick joked weakly when she crept through the ill-fitting door at last.

      ‘Funny, I hoped I was having a nightmare,’ she replied, wondering crossly why his darkly romantic looks had no effect on her silly heartbeat.

      ‘I like your waif, Marcus.’

      ‘You liked every pretty female you ever set eyes on.’

      ‘Well, they like me,’ he replied smugly.

      Thea chuckled and got a penetrating stare from his cousin that she met with proud contempt, in case he thought her susceptible.

      ‘Will the Captain be fit to ride tomorrow?’ she asked at last.

      ‘He wasn’t fit today, but that didn’t stop him.’

      ‘You’ll be on your way СКАЧАТЬ