The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ he was up against.’

      He laughed and the sound was honest and true. ‘Deimos here was well blooded in the Peninsular Campaign in Spain.’

      ‘Deimos?’ she repeated the name. ‘The Grecian spirit of dread and terror?’

      He smiled. ‘Not many would know that.’

      ‘You took him to the Continent?’

      ‘I rode with the Eighteenth Light Dragoons under Lord Paget.’

      ‘Is that where you hurt your leg?’

      ‘On the last day at La Corunna. The medic couldn’t get the bullet out.’

      ‘So it is still in there?’ she asked, horrified.

      ‘And hurting like hell.’ Unexpectedly he smiled. ‘I don’t usually talk about the injury and certainly seldom admit to any pain.’

      ‘Why do you not simply have the shot removed then? Here, in London?’

      ‘The surgeon said that it lay near an artery. If they accidentally severed it during the operation, I should lose either my leg or my life, so at this stage the option of doing nothing is the sensible one. Besides, to complete my side of the marriage deal I still need to scare people away from your father, Miss Cameron.’

      ‘I think you could do that anyway, Lord Montcliffe, with one leg or two.’

      ‘Do you?’ His demeanour had changed. Now he leant towards her, taking the bridle to hold her mare still. She felt the blood in her cheeks rise as it never had before, so red that her whole face throbbed with the consternation.

      ‘I like it when you blush.’

      Daniel Wylde was lethal. With just a few words he could make her forget everything and believe in fairy tales with happy endings against impossible odds.

      Better to remember the way Charlotte Mackay had looked at her with that innate snobbery so prevalent in the English upper classes as she had sniffed out the presence of trade like a bloodhound. Tomorrow when the notice of their intention to marry went into the papers Amethyst could hardly bear to think of what the repercussions would be. But the very worst of it was that she wanted this man before her, wanted his kisses, his smiles and his compliments, no matter what.

      ‘The ball you speak of, would it be very formal?’ she asked apprehensively.

      ‘It would indeed. Did they ever teach you how to dance at your Gaskell Street Presbyterian Church School.’

      ‘They taught me what they knew, though there were times when I wondered just how much that actually was.’

      ‘Did you learn how to waltz?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘A pity, for they call it the dance of love.’ Now his amusement was easily seen. ‘If you like, I would be most happy to teach you the steps.’

      * * *

      He loved the way she was so easily flustered, this woman of commerce and business and brusqueness, though his attention was caught by a series of heavy pins around the line of her hair that had been dislodged by the movement of the ride.

      ‘Do you wear a wig?’

      Her fingers instantly came up to where it was he looked, pushing the dull brown hair forward in one easy swipe.

      ‘I do.’ Her hand shook as she tried to secure the loosened clips.

      ‘Why?’ Surprise at her admission had him frowning.

      ‘The accident in the carriage that we told you of. I had my head shaved so that the surgeon could drill into my scalp to release the pressure on my brain.’

      My God. No simple accident, then, but an operation that could have so easily killed her. He tried to hide his concern and concentrated on the fact that she had survived. ‘What colour is the hair beneath?’

      ‘Not this shade.’ The lowering sun radiated on her face, altering the plain sallowness of her complexion. ‘It is lighter. And curlier. I did not think it would take this long to grow back, though, so I retrieved this old hairpiece from my mother’s things. Now I regret it. But on saying so I do not wish you to think I am vain, it’s just that....’ She stopped, her teeth worrying her bottom lip and confusion sending her eyes away from his.

      Sometimes she looked so unexpectedly beautiful that for the first time since he had met her he allowed himself to imagine something finer between them, his sex swelling with the promise. Amethyst Amelia Cameron was honest to a fault and forthright and direct. She did not simper or lie or pretend. He was so very sick of the deceit of women, that was the trouble. Charlotte Mackay had for ever cured him of liars and his sisters and mother had done the rest with their duplicity and falsities.

      He wished they were somewhere else, somewhere quiet and private, some place that he might bring her up against him and reassure her that he did not think she was vain, but the pathways of the park were filling with more riders and the crease on her forehead told him that she was as astonished as he by their candour.

      ‘We should go back.’

      She glanced away from him and nodded, her fingers tense on the leather reins and every nail bitten to the quick. He wondered why she did not wear the riding gloves he could so plainly see tucked into the fold of her belt.

      * * *

      The dream came again that night of the carriage turning over, the scream of the horses and the cold of the day. Her hand had been caught by her thick woollen glove against a seat that had come loose and she could not free herself and jump to safety as her father had done.

      Over and over and over, in the slow motion of fear. She had not lost consciousness when her head slammed against the roof or lapsed into a faint as her wrist had broken. No, she had lain there as the dust settled, the bright stream of blood turning the day to red and listening to the last dying breaths of one of the horses.

      Her father had reached her first and by his expression she knew things must have been bad. ‘My broken doll,’ he had whispered, words so unlike his usual diction she had thought she must already be dead.

      But the pain came later, as did the fear of heavy gloves, and carriage speed and long-distance travelling. Unreasonable, she knew, but nevertheless there. She had seen Daniel look at her bare hands and wonder.

      Her fingers went up to feel her hair. It was finally growing, a good amount of curl now covering the pink baldness of her scalp. She could have almost dispensed with the wig altogether, but it had become a sort of disguise that she liked in the time since she had put it on and now she was loathe to simply do away with it. People did not notice her as they once had. She blended in more, the colour of the hairpiece picking up some tone in her skin that kept her hidden. She could walk amongst a crowd and barely feel a glance.

      Her tresses had once been her crowning glory. Gerald Whitely told her that time and time again before she had married him. Afterwards he had barely mentioned it, the long silences between them hurtful and unending.

      A light tap on her door had her pulling the neck of her nightgown up.

      ‘Come СКАЧАТЬ