The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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       Chapter Nineteen

      ‘What happened when I was born?’ Verity demanded and there was a wobble of uncertainty in her voice that made Chloe drag Luke in her wake as she rushed to Verity’s side to cup her chin in her other hand, then smooth her hair and force her to meet her eyes.

      ‘It doesn’t matter, my love, you survived and I loved you from the moment you dropped into my arms screaming at the top of your voice. You were so perfect and so very much your own person, how could I help but love you?’

      ‘I love you too, Mama, but I killed my real mother, didn’t I?’

      ‘No, darling, never think that. Your grandfather and uncles did that by abandoning us with not enough to eat and no money to pay for firewood or a doctor when her time came, but she never complained as I did while she waited for you to be born and we scratched a living from the vegetable patch and even resorted to poaching now and again, as well as foraging on the moor for whatever we could catch. She loved you so much she would have endured far worse to see you safe and healthy. Daphne loved you before you were born and I took over when she had to leave you, love. I’m a far better person than I would be if I’d gone on my merry way without you.’

      ‘And when Lady Chloe Thessaly decides to love someone, they stay loved—like it or not,’ Luke added with a wry smile.

      ‘Even after ten years of stony silence and gruff discouragement to do anything of the sort from certain viscounts I could mention,’ Chloe sniped.

      ‘Even then,’ he confirmed.

      ‘You’re a lucky man, Farenze,’ Captain Revereux told him wistfully.

      ‘Luckier than I deserve.’

      ‘That’s what Aunt Virginia said the last time I saw her, Papa. She said you were a lot luckier in love than you would admit of your own accord. I told her I wished you would find a viscountess before I came out, to distract you from growling at any man who looked at me like a bear who hadn’t had enough for dinner,’ Eve said.

      ‘Did she now? And did you?’

      ‘We did, and at least now I know that Lady Chloe will stop you making a laughing-stock of me when I make my début.’

      ‘Oh, the joys of fatherhood,’ Revereux said with a set look that told Luke and Chloe he was feeling low and wistful about all he’d lost.

      ‘Just you wait until this young lady makes her come out before you dare to be smug about my coming ordeal then, Revereux,’ Luke warned him.

      ‘I believe I should like to have a father as well, if you don’t mind me staying with Mama and Uncle Luke most of the time,’ Verity said earnestly and Chloe looked as if she was about to cry as she watched them assess the sore spots in this new world of theirs and find a way forward, even if it did feel strange and new.

      ‘I don’t think I would mind that at all,’ Revereux replied huskily.

      ‘Well, that’s settled then,’ Eve pronounced and nobody argued.

      * * *

      ‘Can you bear to part with Verity when Revereux is ashore, love?’ Luke asked Chloe when the girls and the invalid were escorted to bed by their mentors and the two of them sat by the fire in the library before parting reluctantly for the night.

      ‘Somehow I shall make myself do so,’ she replied, staring into the fire to revel in the love, excitement and security of being held in Luke’s mighty arms and dreaming about sharing all she was with him so soon now it was almost in reach.

      ‘Verity will always need you, Chloe,’ his deep voice rumbled and she felt the resonance of it as her heartbeat raced at such heady proximity.

      ‘Maybe by the time he is home again she will have a cousin to keep me from fretting myself to flinders about their big sister,’ she added, smiling at the thought of a solemn little boy or girl with Luke’s complicated grey eyes wondering at the world in her arms. ‘It really is hard work trying to sort out all these relationships, isn’t it?’

      ‘All that matters is that we love them, but do you think the world is quite ready for another violet-eyed temptress or some mule-headed boy in our image?’

      ‘I do, if you agree to take equal blame, but what if I can’t give you children, Luke?’ she asked him with the thought of Virginia and Virgil’s great love affair, without children to make it complete, heavy on her mind.

      ‘Then we will have to trust James weds a bride with more sense than him, then gives him a tribe of brats. Don’t look like that, love, it didn’t matter to Virgil and Virginia that they couldn’t have a family, as they made one anyway. Mantaigne lived here as a boy and James and I spent our summers with them by rote, since my stepmama couldn’t refuse to let Virginia and Virgil have my brother when she wished so badly he was the heir. She wouldn’t allow us to come here together though; we might have learnt to like each other and she hoped I’d cock up my toes so he could inherit, so that would never do.’

      ‘She has a cold and calculating heart,’ Chloe said and turned to stare up at the wonderful man who’d taken to hiding his vulnerability behind apparent coldness and self-control far too young.

      ‘I was better off on the wrong side of her than James was on the right one,’ he said with a bittersweet smile.

      ‘Promise me you won’t wed a harridan СКАЧАТЬ