The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ if she was with them. With any luck it would take days to familiarise himself with his estates and in the meantime he and Peters could find out what the devil was going on here and do something about it while she was busy.

      ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you, my lord?’ she spat so softly he was sure Lady Wakebourne had no idea how far from a truce they were.

      ‘No, being clever is far too much effort. It must be low cunning,’ he muttered before bowing to her with such exquisite grace and wishing her a good night, so she had to curtsey back and return it with such overdone sweetness he knew she secretly wished him anything but a good night.

      * * *

      Polly had no choice but to follow her ladyship into the little entrance hall, but she went past the wretch without letting even a thread of her gown touch him. In the kindly shadows cast by the single candle he was as immaculate and exotic as he’d been at dinner. She told herself it was a timely reminder how far apart they truly were. Awareness of his subtly powerful body sent prickles of unease shivering across her skin like wildfire and yet he looked calm and unaffected as if she had never fallen on top of him and felt the brilliant jag of attraction shock between them.

      She took the lamp and held it lower to hide the flush that was making her cheeks glow and told herself it was as well if her ladyship didn’t look too closely at his lordship’s once-immaculate clothes. She’d kissed the man, for goodness’ sake, sunk down and seized his mouth in a hasty snatched kiss that still sent shivers of awareness and want through her like a fever she couldn’t seem to break.

      ‘For heaven’s sake, girl, I can hardly see a foot in front of me,’ Lady Wakebourne chided so Polly had to raise their lantern to light the way after all.

      Lord Mantaigne gave a warm and almost sleepy-sounding chuckle that made her think even more darkly sinful thoughts of rumpled bedsheets and sleepless nights of far too much intimacy. What had the wretched man done to her? She heard her own lips let out a muffled moan of denial as the thought of waking up beside him crept into her secret thoughts and settled in. No, he was an impostor—a rich and idle aristocrat, but not quite the harmless and noble gentleman he pretended to be. Nothing about his gaze—smoky with shadows as well as hungry and mysterious in this soft light—seemed either safe or gallant.

      He knew he was a handsome and powerful man in his prime and she was painfully aware she was an awkward and gawky female, aware of him in every inch of her lanky body. All the time her head was trying to block him from her senses, she’d felt the power he could hold over her wilder senses, if she let him, and ordered herself to be very wary indeed.

      He could walk right over a woman’s most tender hopes and dreams and make them his before either of them realised it, then he’d walk away. Whatever else he was capable of, a deep-down sense of fairness told her he wouldn’t inflict pain on another human being in pursuit of his own pleasure. She wondered about all the women who’d loved him, then watched him go without a backward look. The shudder that racked her at the very idea of being one of them was a powerful antidote. She imagined the desolation he’d leave in his wake when he left her and recoiled as if he’d brandished a lethal weapon instead of that rueful smile.

      She raised her chin and met his eyes with as much indifference as she could summon. He stepped back and nodded as if to admit she couldn’t take a lover of any sort and certainly not one like him. His bow said she might be right and he gently closed the door before either of them quite took in the fact he was gone.

      ‘The boy has far too much charm for his own good,’ her ladyship murmured and ignored Polly’s sceptical snort with the queenly indifference of a true lady.

      ‘If you say so,’ Polly replied in as neutral a tone as she could after such a day and gave a weary sigh as she lit her ladyship back upstairs and whispered a soft goodnight before running up the next flight of steps to her own room.

      * * *

      She slept well only because she was exhausted by a day of toil and tension, but woke with a feeling of unease and the half memory of unquiet dreams. She scrambled into her work clothes, sparing a cursory glance as she brushed, then plaited, her hair. Once she was as ready to face the day as she would ever be she looked round her cosy room in the eaves, just in case this was the last time it was her home and not an old attic most would think old-fashioned and inconvenient. If they had to leave here, she would miss it more than her childhood home, but there was so much about Dayspring she had learnt to love and its owner obviously hated. This wasn’t a significant part of the castle, but there was a wonderful view of orchards and parkland and a glimpse of the sea even from this side of the castle.

      Going downstairs, Polly could almost sense the people she knew falling into places none of them had taken any notice of for years. A gap was yawning between those who had lived here as equals until yesterday. Soon she would have to don petticoats and whatever jumble of skirts they could put together out of the attics as a matter of course. She tried to picture herself looking clumsy and overgrown in the narrow skirts and high waist of the current mode and had to smile wryly at the very idea. Put ostrich feathers on any bonnet of hers and she’d make a sight to frighten small children and skittish horses.

      Not that she could afford fashion, she reminded herself, and batted away the thought of Lord Mantaigne stunned speechless as she swept into the room dressed in a gown designed to make the best of her queenly height instead of the shabby and ill-fitting monstrosity of last night. Nonsense, of course. The most dazzling beauties of fashionable society must fawn on him like bees round honey and Miss Trethayne of nowhere at all still had too much pride to join in even if she could.

      * * *

      ‘Good morning, Miss Trethayne.’ Mr Peters rose politely from the breakfast table to greet her, then looked significantly at her brothers until they stood as well.

      ‘Good morning, sir, and a very fine morning it is too, but who are these polite young gentlemen? I can’t say I recognise them.’

      ‘It’s us, Poll,’ Henry told her wearily, as if wondering about her eyesight.

      ‘May we sit down now, Sis? I’m hungry as a horse,’ Toby asked.

      ‘Of course you are, love, please carry on before you fade away in front of me,’ she said, exchanging a rueful glance with Mr Peters that probably looked intimate to Lord Mantaigne when he strolled into the room.

      ‘Good morning,’ he said coolly, and she had to have imagined a flash of anger in his lazy gaze before it went unreadable again.

      ‘It’s going to be a lovely day,’ she offered because she didn’t want the boys to pick up on her worries about the future, or her jumbled feelings towards the marquis.

      ‘Indeed, but the sea is still cold,’ he said, helping himself from the pot of porridge set by the fire to keep warm.

      ‘Don’t say you’ve been for a swim, Mantaigne?’ Mr Peters asked, seeming as startled as Polly that his employer would indulge in such bracing activity.

      ‘I believe it’s allowed if you have skill enough not to drown,’ he said as if there was nothing unusual about a fashionable beau battling the full force of nature on such a bracing morning. Although the sun shone there was a lively breeze and taking on the waves must have been hard going.

      ‘Don’t even think about it,’ his secretary said with a shudder, ‘I can only imagine the fuss if you drown when I’m supposed to guard your back.’

      ‘A task that should never have been set СКАЧАТЬ