Highwayman Husband. Helen Dickson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in her young life. And yet he couldn’t blame her for wanting to move on. Besides, he wouldn’t have wanted her to wear widow’s weeds for the rest of her life. She was far too lovely to hide herself away.

      And yet he did wonder how audacious Carlyle had been regarding his courtship of Laura. The mere idea of his wife lying in Carlyle’s bed was enough to splinter his emotions from all rational control. At any other time and with a woman other than his wife he would have shrugged it off. But this wasn’t another time and Laura was his wife. John, sensing his unease on this matter, had tactfully told him that she had resided not one night at Burfield Hall, and that Carlyle’s visits to the manor had been infrequent and of short duration, and always during daylight hours. And yet Lucas was not reassured by this.

      ‘Tell me something,’ he said softly. ‘How do you like living at Roslyn?’

      ‘I like it very well. I’ve come to love the house and everyone in it.’

      ‘And yet you were going to leave it to wed Carlyle. What do you think he would have done with it, Laura?’

      His words were calmly spoken, but Laura heard an edge to his voice. ‘I—I don’t know. We never discussed it.’

      Lucas shifted to a more comfortable position, propping one booted foot casually atop the opposite knee. ‘Why don’t you sit back and relax? You look like a rabbit about to bolt down the nearest hole. You’re spoiling the atmosphere.’

      ‘I am?’

      ‘Yes, the atmosphere I was enjoying before you came in, which was warm—quiet. For me it was…’ He fell silent and stared intently into the glowing heart of the fire, his eyes fixed on something invisible, something way beyond the confines of the room.

      Easing herself into a more comfortable position, Laura looked at him in surprise. There was something in the clear depths of his eyes that she did not recognise, something mysterious—sinister, even, that eluded all her understanding. For a moment he seemed to forget where he was. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked quietly.

      Abruptly he came back to earth and said harshly, ‘You couldn’t understand.’

      ‘I—might. I’m a good listener—so I’m told.’

      He smiled suddenly, that crooked smile Laura remembered of old. His light grey eyes rested warmly on her face, the fire having turned her cheeks a soft pink. ‘I’m sure you are.’

      They fell silent, each preoccupied with their own thoughts and content to listen to the wind buffeting the great house on its high perch above the sea. Seated thus, Laura felt a strange sense of security she had not felt in a long time. She could not believe Lucas was here with her. Was it an illusion—a figment of her imagination? she asked herself.

      She let her mind drift back over two years, remembering how it had been between them that one and only night she had lain with him as his wife. In a new home surrounded by strangers, she had had no one to answer the frightening turmoil of questions about the night ahead.

      At thirty years old and having made love to many women, a paragon of virtue Lucas was not. Before they had married Laura had already fallen in love with her husband-to-be. She was not foolish enough to think the feeling was reciprocated, and nor was she naïve enough to believe she knew how to make him happy. But she had desperately wanted to—somehow—and she had been determined to find out how to accomplish it.

      Lucas having made no attempt to consummate their marriage at any of the posting inns on the way to Cornwall, when they had reached Roslyn Manor and the moment had finally come Laura had yielded helplessly to the hot, searing need within her, while a nameless panic began to take hold of her. Lucas had taken her quickly, dutifully, and without endearment, with no thought to her immaturity and innocence, and after he had withdrawn from her he had rolled away and gone to sleep. It had been nothing more than the joining together of any man and his wife. Duty or pleasure, the thing was done.

      Too stunned to move, Laura had lain looking up at the shadows playing with the light on the ceiling, struggling with disappointment. She had felt so miserable she had wept at her husband’s absolute detachment. If that was love she could not understand why they made so much fuss about it in story books. It had left her with a feeling of disgust combined with a strong sense of frustration.

      Gazing across at him now, Laura could not believe the man she saw was the same man who had left her bed with the dawn and immediately embarked for France. Suddenly she saw his expression gentle, and she was sure she could see approval in his inscrutable eyes. ‘Why did you want to hide from me?’ she asked.

      ‘I didn’t. I just wanted to lie low for a while.’

      ‘But why? Has it something to do with you being a thief—a common highwayman? Why have you taken to the life of a High Toby?’

      As he observed how seriously concerned she looked Lucas’s composure slipped and he laughed outright, a rich, deep sound that reminded Laura of thick velvet. She realised that when he did that he seemed younger, much younger than when his face was in repose.

      ‘I’m sure you will be relieved when I tell you that I am not a highwayman. Tonight was the first time—and the last—that I shall take to the road.’

      ‘Then—why did you do it?’ she asked, quite bewildered. ‘I did not take you for a prankster.’

      His response to her question was a cool inclination of the head. A hard gleam entered his eyes and when he spoke his voice was deadly calm. ‘It wasn’t a prank. It was deliberately intended to infuriate and intimidate Carlyle—to put his back up. You are my wife, Laura, and no one—no one—interferes with anything that belongs to me. I can be a harsh man when angered.’

      Laura felt a moment of unease at the possessive content of his words. ‘I discovered that to my cost,’ she retorted drily.

      ‘When John told me what you were up to—that you were to wed Carlyle and that you were celebrating your betrothal with the entire county—I was furious, naturally so. However, knowing nothing could come of it now I had returned to the scene, my fury abated. When John informed me that you intended travelling home that night I couldn’t resist the pure devilry that came over me, to have a little fun at Carlyle’s expense,’ Lucas said with a roguish grin, the harshness of a moment earlier having vanished.

      ‘And mine,’ Laura reminded him coolly.

      ‘I confess that I was enjoying myself rather well until I heard it from your own lips that you were to be his wife. It rekindled my anger and roused all that is unpleasant in me.’

      ‘I noticed,’ Laura said. ‘Why didn’t you try and stop the celebrations?’

      ‘I did think about it, but I wasn’t ready to show myself—not to you, nor anybody.’

      Laura was about to ask him what the secrecy was all about, but found herself saying instead, ‘You really don’t like Edward, do you, Lucas?’

      ‘Does one like a rattlesnake?’ he responded quickly. Placing the horrors Carlyle had inflicted on his own person aside, Lucas dwelt for a moment on what John told him when he had brought him up to date with all that had been happening in the district during his absence. It would seem that an underlying menace lurked among the huddle of cottages in Roslyn village and the surrounding hamlets, for the very name of Edward Carlyle engendered such fear that none dared interfere with his plans, challenge him or speak against him. СКАЧАТЬ