I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin
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Название: I’ll Bring You Buttercups

Автор: Elizabeth Elgin

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Зарубежные любовные романы

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isbn: 9780007397976

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СКАЧАТЬ Creesby or York, even, should chance on them in the park. Oh, the scandal!

      ‘Then why are you making such a bossy face? Frowning doesn’t suit you.’

      ‘I was just wondering, miss, what would happen if you were seen with him.’

      ‘Seen? But who in all London do we know?’

      ‘One of her ladyship’s friends, perhaps.’ Many of Lady Helen’s acquaintances had a house in London. Come to think of it, it was strange that someone as rich as Mrs Clementina hadn’t bought one, too. ‘Why, you might even run into Mr Elliot,’ she added as an afterthought, though in fact it was a distinct possibility, since that young man seemed always to be popping off to London.

      ‘I doubt it. Cousin Elliot won’t be walking in Hyde Park, even if he should decide to come to town. He’ll be eating and drinking all night and sleeping all day, be sure of that.

      ‘So do we have a fresh cucumber, Hawthorn, and an uncut cake, or must we got out shopping? And don’t spoil it for me, please? I do so want to meet him again.’

      ‘Then you’re being very forward, if you’ll pardon me.’ Alice was compelled to say it. ‘It isn’t for the likes of yourself to go running after a gentleman, no matter how nice he is, or how respectable. But you like him, don’t you, miss?’

      ‘I like him,’ Julia whispered, her eyes large and bright, her cheeks flushing. ‘You like Dwerryhouse – can’t you see how it is for me?’

      Liked Tom? Loved him, more like. Yes, loved him and wanted, all at once, to hold him close, to lift up her face for his kiss.

      ‘Yes, I can see, and I’ll not spoil it for you. But be careful, miss. Please be careful.’

      Liked him? Julia Sutton was smitten, that’s what. Alice knew the signs, for hadn’t it happened exactly the same to herself? Miss Julia had fallen head over heels for a man she knew nothing about, Alice fretted silently, and where it would end was anybody’s guess.

      ‘And since you ask, there is an uncut cake in a tin in the pantry,’ she said in final surrender. ‘Hope he likes cherry cake …’

       4

      Julia Sutton had never been in such a tizzy of indecision. What to wear, and why did the hair combed so carefully over her forehead insist on springing back to reveal a bruise so angry that everyone must notice. And not only her forehead, but her eye …

      ‘The astrakhan-trimmed costume, Hawthorn?’

      ‘No, miss.’ Not fur-trimmed. Not in May.

      ‘The blue, then?’

      Alice pursed her lips and shook her head. The blue, hobble-skirted costume brought back memories of a young lady’s ankles and knees shamelessly exposed, and made her blush.

      ‘Then what?

      ‘An afternoon dress.’ Alice had long ago made up her mind. ‘The flowered voile.’ So lovely and floaty, with full sleeves. And the pretty pink shoes, perhaps, and the wide-brimmed hat with the flower trim. That was what a young lady wore for a walk in the park with a young man. A romantic dress.

      ‘You think so?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ A dab of rosewater at her wrists and on her handkerchief, perhaps, and a little face powder to tone down the bruising. ‘And if you walk on his left, he’ll not even see it – your eye, I mean.’

      ‘It’s worse than I thought. Mama’s going to want an explanation.’

      ‘She is. So how about the truth?’

      ‘I couldn’t. She’d never let me out alone again!’

      ‘She won’t if you lie to her and get found out. All you have to say is that –’

      ‘Is that we were walking in Hyde Park – innocently – and got caught up in a meeting and running away – in my hobble skirt – I tripped and fell and hit my head on a kerbstone.’

      ‘No, miss. We were walking in the park – never mind the innocently – and a policeman set about a young woman who did nothing more than buy a news-sheet and you went to help her. And I’ll tell her ladyship that a great policeman went his length and took you down with him.’

      ‘And a kind young doctor took me home?’

      ‘That a doctor happened to be passing and came to your assistance,’ Alice amended, ‘and said you should send for Miss Sutton’s doctor, should the need arise.’

      ‘Of course! And it’s almost the truth, isn’t it?’

      ‘As near as makes no matter.’ It wasn’t right to tell lies to her ladyship. Not deliberate ones.

      ‘And we needn’t mention it was you sent him flying?’

      ‘Best not, miss.’

      ‘You are quite right. Not only would London be out of bounds for me but for you, too. We’d never be able to come here alone again.’

      ‘But I’d never –’ Not for a minute had Alice thought to have so fine a jaunt again.

      ‘Never see London again? When we’re having such a good time? Oh, but I intend to come as often as Aunt Sutton will allow. Suddenly, I seem to have a fondness for London – and for –’ She stopped suddenly, meaningfully.

      ‘For young doctors?’ Alice supplied, amazed at her forwardness.

      ‘One particular young doctor,’ Julia laughed. ‘So are you going to be on my side, Hawthorn? Are you going to help me and never, ever, say so much as a word about him until I say you can?’

      ‘I’m on your side, miss. I’ll never ever tell on you and anyway, it isn’t likely you’ll ever meet him again, is it?’

      ‘Never again? Oh, Hawthorn!’

      She smiled, and all at once the bruises didn’t seem to matter, because all at once Julia Sutton was beautiful, just like Mrs Shaw said she would be if only she’d let herself.

      ‘See him again!’ Alice gasped. Oh, my Lor’. Miss Julia was in love!

      Elliot Sutton left the house by the conservatory door, walking quickly across the croquet lawn, making for the kitchen garden and the birch wood that lay beyond it. He should, he thought viciously, have brought a gun. He felt like blasting at something; felt like killing. But there was no shooting until August – only vermin, and that was for keepers.

      Moodily, he kicked at a cobble. He was sick of Holdenby; sick of Mama who held her Ironmaster’s money over him, an ever-present threat. But she’d never leave it to Nathan, his holier-than-thou brother, though she’d said, more than once, that she would.

      He could never be sure of his mother; never certain when she would open СКАЧАТЬ