The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ in an unbroken line to her ample bosom. A tinkling laugh completed the picture.

      ‘Daniel. I knew it was you.’ His name curled from her tongue as an invitation, the intimacy that they had once shared drawn into the words. Her glance took in the woman he was with and his bride-to-be stilled perceptibly.

      ‘Lady Charlotte Mackay, this is Miss Amethyst Cameron.’

      ‘Amethyst. An unusual name, I think.’ A frown marred the space between Charlotte’s sky-blue eyes as she tried to place the family. ‘Are you of the Camerons from Fife in Scotland or those closer?’

      ‘Neither, Lady Mackay.’ Amethyst’s answer was quietly given and then she smiled, deep dimples evident in each cheek and a knowing humour across her face.

      Strength and honour had its own allure, Daniel thought, watching her deflect the other’s interest with such acumen. Out here in the open with the promise of a ride before them and a beautiful summer’s evening foretelling a hopeful outlook, Charlotte looked overdressed and overdone. However, as if realising that she would have little more in the way of conversation from Amethyst, she turned her attention towards him.

      ‘I will be here tomorrow at the same time. Perhaps we might enjoy a ride alone.’ Her hand closed over Daniel’s sleeve and in her inimitable style she leaned across to him, the riding habit she wore cut as low as it could be. ‘For old times’ sake. For the world that was before it all turned different. For us,’ she whispered closely, the breath of her words across his face daring more.

      Once he might have smiled back his assent and followed her to the ends of the earth. But that was then and this was now. Amethyst Cameron had looked away, her eyes on the trees far in the distance as the horse below her shuffled.

      Tipping his hat to both ladies he disengaged Charlotte’s grasp and made his steed walk on. When they were out of earshot he tried to explain.

      ‘Lady Mackay is lonely and—’

      Amethyst interrupted him. ‘I don’t require an explanation, my lord. I won’t be that sort of wife.’

      He laughed, but the sound was not humorous. ‘Then what sort of wife will you be, Miss Cameron?

      She did not answer, but the red flush of anger on her face was telling and what had been a comfortable and easy meeting was suddenly difficult. But he needed to explain to her honestly so that she did not imagine he would be a philandering husband.

      ‘We were lovers for three-and-a-half years between the stints of my army duty.’ Now she looked around at him. ‘I was twenty-seven when I met Charlotte and thirty when she ran off and married Lord Spenser Mackay. He was an extremely wealthy Scottish landowner, you understand, and I was a second son and a soldier.’

      ‘So she broke your heart?’

      His laughter this time was much more genuine. ‘At the time perhaps I thought that she had.’

      ‘But now...?’

      ‘Now with the wisdom of distance there is the greatest relief in the realisation that we would never have suited.’

      ‘I got the impression that she thinks exactly the opposite.’

      ‘Then she is wrong.’ The distance had returned to his voice. ‘Do you have a ball dress?’

      ‘Yes. Why?’

      ‘There is a ball on Saturday night which will be well attended. I hope you might accompany me to it?’

      ‘Would your family be there?’

      ‘No. Mama has a slight cold and my two sisters are still young.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I thought you might have known all my particular familial circumstances when you made me your choice of groom?’

      For the first time he heard Amethyst laugh as though she meant it. She simply tossed her head back and sounded happy. He was mesmerised.

      ‘I left the snooping to my father, my lord.’

      ‘And I passed muster?’

      ‘It was the time you spent with Sir John Moore in La Corunna that sealed it for my father, I think. It was said that you were quite the hero on the heights of Penasquedo and he has always admired those who might lay down their life for crown and country, you see.’

      ‘And what of your choice?’

      The good humour vanished in a second.

      ‘I no longer trust myself enough to make wise decisions.’

      ‘Which implies that you have made some foolish ones?’

      ‘People change on you when you least expect it, my lord.’ She looked at him directly now, the dark of her eyes marked with a softer gold.

      ‘Aye, that they do. Lady Mackay became a woman I did not recognise, but I wouldn’t say her intransigence was my problem.’

      The small show of her dimples heartened him. ‘The blame was hers, you mean.’

      ‘Entirely.’

      ‘And you moved on without looking back?’ she asked curiously.

      ‘I did.’

      * * *

      This conversation was taking a surprising turn. Honesty was something she favoured and Lord Daniel Wylde had not held back about his past or lied about it.

      Unlike her.

      Such knowledge shrivelled her good mood, though their kiss of the other day still lingered below each glance and word. A scorching and undeniable truth embracing neither logic nor reason.

      Passing into a narrower path, he took the reins of her horse and pulled them both to a stop. ‘Even given the unusual circumstances of our union, Miss Cameron, I want us to be friends.’

      Friends. As she had been at first with Gerald Whitely. She hoped he did not see the consternation on her face because what he was offering was honourable.

      ‘I certainly would not wish for two years of bickering.’

      She shook her head. Everything he said made perfect sense and she had come into this betrothal only with the expectation of filling the last months of her father’s life with happiness. But the kiss they had shared had skewed things, made them different and she could not help but hope that he might eschew convention and take her in his arms, here in the most public of places. That he might kiss her again, show her it had not been all a figment of her imagination, fill in the empty fears with a warm certainty.

      But of course he did not, he merely called his horse on and challenged her.

      ‘You ride well, Miss Cameron. At Montcliffe after we are married I would deem it an honour to pit my horse against your own.’

      She gave him a smile, her roan shimmying as she let her attention wander. With Montcliffe beside her and the summer breeze in her face Amythest felt the sort of freedom that she had missed for months now.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ