In the Barrister's Bed. Tina Gabrielle

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СКАЧАТЬ bachelor, but to add two more would be enough to send any lady into hysterics,” Blackwood said dryly.

      “There’s no need to be rude,” Brent said, bowing politely to Bella. “It was a pleasure, Mrs. Sinclair. We are expecting our remaining colleague and his wife to arrive in a few days. I think you would get along nicely with her.”

      Bella smiled up at the handsome barrister and found herself saying, “I look forward to meeting her, Mr. Stone.”

      The pair departed and she was left alone with Blackwood.

      “I’m surprised,” he said after he closed the door and turned to her, “that you have charmed them.”

      “Are you?”

      “Anthony Stevens doesn’t usually find females clever. And most women find him ... how shall I phrase it ... quite frightful.”

      She looked at him with mock innocence. “Indeed. I did not find him frightful at all.”

      “And as for Brent Stone, he may very well be your new champion.”

      “He seems an agreeable gentleman.”

      His gaze pierced the distance between them. “You find Mr. Stone attractive?”

      “Whatever makes you believe that?” she asked.

      He shrugged. “A guess is all. Where were you headed, by the way?”

      “I was going for a walk.”

      “Splendid. There are a few matters I’d like to discuss with you. May I join you?”

      She hesitated. She did not want to spend more time with him than necessary, yet if they were to resolve matters between them they needed to speak. She placed her notebook and pencil on a pedestal table beside a vase of fresh flowers and faced him. “That would be fine.”

      He opened the door. “Do you wish to fetch your cloak?”

      “There’s no need. The weather is pleasant enough.”

      He grinned, held the door wide, and stepped aside.

      Her heart skipped a beat. His smile softened his chiseled features, and she found herself stealing glances at his profile beneath lowered lashes.

      They descended the front steps and strolled past the fountain. The flagstone path led to the formal gardens with its box hedges, blooming azaleas, and floral borders. Spring had arrived, and the sky was a brilliant blue with a few puffs of cloud. Bella raised her face, and the afternoon sun warmed her cheeks. A hawk soared above, precise and mindless, a part of things. How she envied its blissful freedom.

      “Tell me how you first came to see Wyndmoor Manor,” he asked.

      “There’s not much to tell, Your Grace. I was passing through St. Albans when I spotted the place. We stopped at the Twin Rams, and when I inquired I learned the property was for sale.”

      “Must we be so formal? Please call me James. No matter the circumstances, we are living together. Besides, the title is new to me.”

      He insisted she call him James, but use of his Christian name was horribly improper despite the fact that they were sharing a residence. She didn’t want to think of him as James. It was one step closer to thinking of him as a man rather than an aristocrat who desired to drive her out of her new home.

      At her hesitation, he said, “It is not much to ask, and if we are in public, then you may certainly address me by my title.”

      She could hardly refuse without sounding churlish or intimidated, and she didn’t want to appear either. “Only when we are in private then.”

      They headed away from the house and the formal gardens and crossed an open grassy field dotted with wildflowers of every color of the rainbow. The air was heady with the fragrant scent of their perfume. Succumbing to a fanciful impulse, she stopped and picked a handful of the delicate-looking blooms.

      They walked for some time before stepping onto a tree-lined path with sun-shot leaves that arched overhead. It was a warm May afternoon and the foliage provided refreshing shade. Blackwood knew where he was headed and soon the sounds of a nearby brook could be heard above the chirping birds.

      They cleared the trees and she realized it was not a brook but a stream with a small waterfall. She gasped as a pair of swans floated past, their pristine white feathers and curved necks as graceful as ballet dancers. The lovely vista beyond the stream was a picture of treetops and rolling hills that had enthralled her the first time she had laid eyes on the land.

      When Bella had offered to buy the property from Sir Reeves, she had pictured herself venturing out into the closest town of St. Albans. Before her marriage, she had enjoyed strolling through Plymouth’s shopping district and discreetly observing people. She had scribbled notes about their mannerisms and speech and had poured every detail into her writing.

      Her father had encouraged her ambitions. He had loved books of all kinds, especially those of history and politics, and her childhood home had been cluttered with newspaper clippings and books on foreign affairs and domestic social reform. Over the years she grew to find the topic of social reform fascinating. The strife of the poverty-stricken and laborers in London had caught her interest. She’d researched the child labor laws and the increase in crime from the destitute and oftentimes injured soldiers that had returned from Waterloo, and she had started writing her own articles.

      Then one day Roger Sinclair had visited her father and expressed interest in Bella. He had been respectful and reserved, and when Bella had mentioned her own ambitions to submit her work to the London newspapers in hopes of getting published, Roger had nodded with feigned enthusiasm. It was her first taste of his remarkable talent for deception.

      Soon after her marriage, Roger had found her addressing an envelope to The London Gazette. He had ripped her work out of her hands and torn it into pieces. “No wife of mine will ever engage in such unacceptable activities,” Roger had spat. Writing and politics, he insisted, were for men. When Bella had argued, Roger had immediately threatened, “Harriet is old and slow. Servants should be useful. I’ve a mind to cut her without a reference.”

      Roger had known quite well that at Harriet’s age she would never find new employment and would starve, and Bella would do anything to protect her. With no more than a curt slash of his hand, Roger had destroyed her aspirations as a writer. He had been an adept liar, and he had woven tales of his wife’s “fragile mental state” until people eyed her warily on the seldom occasions she had been seen. Some had even offered Roger their admiration for not committing his mad wife to an asylum.

      She was now a widow and the owner of Wyndmoor Manor. She could pen political articles or even short love stories that struck her fancy and, under the guise of a pseudonym, send them to any London newspaper or publisher of her choosing. The people of Hertfordshire had no knowledge of her past—a fact that added to Wyndmoor’s charm—and she was free to join a poetry group, a book discussion group, or the church choir, and even attend the occasional afternoon tea or country fair.

      After seven tumultuous years bound to a cruel spouse, she could peacefully spend the rest of her life here, and it had seemed as if fate had finally smiled upon her.

      Or so she had thought.

      She glanced at СКАЧАТЬ