The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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       Chapter Four

      Daniel sat in his library that evening before a fire that was both warm and comforting. Looking up, he frowned at the portrait of his brother lording it over the room. He would have a servant take the painting down on the morrow and he would find a landscape of Spain he knew to be somewhere in the confines of this town house. Nigel’s foolishness had brought the Earldom to this pass and he wanted no more of a reminder of his brother’s handsome visage smiling down upon his own dire straits.

      The cool of early evening moved in about him despite the fire flame in the hearth, his leg still aching with the slightest of movements. Outside a dog called, the plaintive howl answered as he listened and silently counted the hours until the dawn. How often had he sat like this since his return from Europe? Even as he massaged the tight knots in his thigh, others formed in their place, iron-hard against the skin that covered muscle. His leg was getting worse. He knew it was. Would there come a day when he could not bear weight upon it at all? He swore beneath his breath and resolved not to think about it.

      A knock at his door had him returning his leg to the floor and when his man came in with a card showing that Miss Amethyst Cameron was waiting to see him, his eyes glanced at the clock. Half past eight. My God. No time at all for a young and single woman of any station in life to be calling upon a gentleman without the repercussion of ruin. Following his servant to the lobby he found his bride-to-be standing there, no lady’s maid at her side and no papa to keep everything above board and proper, either. Glancing around, he was relieved to see a Cameron footman waiting in the shadow of the porch, ready to shepherd her back through the evening.

      ‘I am very sorry to come at such a late hour, but I need to speak with you, my lord.’

      Worry marred her brow and she seemed relieved as he gestured her through to the blue salon, the scent of lemon and flowers following her in. Her dull brown hair this evening was pulled back and fastened with a glittery pin. It was the first piece of jewellery he had ever seen her wear.

      ‘Carole, one of the little girls at Gaskell Street, made the fastener for me and presented it to me this evening,’ she explained when she realised what had caught his attention. ‘A beaker was broken at the school last week and she fashioned the shards of china into a clip.’ Her smile broadened and it had the effect of making her eyes look bigger in her face than they usually were. And much more gold. Perfectly arched dark eyebrows sat above them.

      ‘I have just come from the school concert, my lord.’ Even as she said it she removed the clip from her hair and deposited it in a large cloth bag she carried.

      ‘You work there?’

      ‘No, I am a patron, my lord, a small recompense for all that they did for me as a child. We are building a new dormitory that will be ready in a matter of only a few weeks and there is much yet to finish and so—’ She stopped abruptly and blushed. ‘But you cannot possibly be interested in any of this. Papa said I should only speak of happy things, light topics and suchlike. Orphans and all of their accompanying poverty, I suppose, do not come into that category.’

      He had to smile. ‘I hope I am not quite so shallow, Miss Cameron. The work sounds useful and interesting.’

      ‘Then you would not stop me being involved? You would allow me the independence that I need after this marriage?’

      When he nodded Daniel had the sudden impression that he might have been agreeing to far more than he knew he was, but she soon went on to another topic altogether.

      ‘Papa’s insistence on a harmonious union should not be too onerous either, my lord. Nowhere in the marriage document is there any mention of how many days a year we would need to reside together. It need not be a trap.’

      ‘Are you always this forthright, Miss Cameron?’

      ‘Yes.’ No qualification. She looked at him as if he had just given her the biggest compliment in the world.

      ‘Clinical.’

      ‘Pragmatic,’ she returned and blushed to almost the same shade as a scarlet rug thrown across a nearby sofa.

      Such vulnerability lurking amongst brave endeavour was strangely endearing and although he meant not to Daniel caught at her hand. He wanted to protect her from a world that would not quite know what to make of her; his world, where the cut of a cloth was as important as the name of the family and the consideration of others less fortunate in means was best left to the worry of others or to nobody at all.

      As he had already noted, she smelt of lemon and flowers, none of the heady heavy aromas the ladies in court seemed to be drawn towards and desire ignited within him, as unexpected as it was unwanted. Abruptly he let her go.

      ‘You must know that it is not done for a lady to visit a gentleman alone, Miss Cameron, under any circumstances.’

      ‘Oh, I am not a lady, my lord.’

      ‘You soon will be.’

      Again she shook her head. ‘I do not wish to change, Lord Montcliffe. There is just simply too much for me to do. This is why I have come to make certain that you know...’ She stopped, and he got the impression she was trying to work out exactly how she might give him her truths.

      ‘Know what?’

      ‘I will marry you, my lord, and my father will in turn nullify the debts of your family. But in exchange I wish for two things.’

      She waited as he nodded.

      ‘I want you to make certain no one will ever bother my father again and I want you to promise that when Papa leaves this world...’ her voice caught ‘...you will let me go.’

      ‘Let you go?’

      ‘I will not contest the monies at all, though I will expect a substantial settlement and Dunstan House, of course, and its accompanying lands.’

      ‘My God. You are serious?’

      She nodded her head. ‘I am a business woman, my lord, and astute enough to know that this marriage is only one of convenience. You would never have chosen me without the enticement of great wealth and I accept that, but I do want civility and fairness.’

      Each word she said was more astonishing than the last. He had had all manner of women throwing themselves at him for years and here was one telling him to his face that a marriage between them was purely a matter of business, and finite at that.

      ‘What of your needs in this union, Miss Cameron?’

      ‘I don’t have any as such, Lord Montcliffe. I simply want my father to be content in the last months of his life. That is all.’

      Daniel was not one to turn away from such a gauntlet.

      ‘And emotion? Where does that fit into this conundrum?’

      She shook her head vigorously, the brown tresses marked with no sheen from the lamplight. She had stepped back too, her strange large bag positioned between them like a barrier.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ