Heiress in Regency Society: The Defiant Debutante. Helen Dickson

Чтение книги онлайн.

      When Angelina had left him, Alex stood in the centre of his room in deep reflection. Angrily he attacked his sentimental thoughts until they cowered in meek submission, but they refused to lie down. His attraction to Angelina was disquieting—in fact, it was damned annoying. If he wanted an affair or diversion of any kind, he had a string of some of the most beautiful women in the country to choose from—so why should he feel this insanely wild attraction for an eighteen-year-old girl who had hardly left the schoolroom?

      He tried to put her from his mind, but failed miserably in his effort. The sweet fragrance of her perfume lingered everywhere, drifting through his senses, and the throbbing hunger began anew. He cursed with silent frustration, seized by a strong desire to go after her and cauterise his need by holding her close and clamping his lips on hers.

      Instead he went into his study and attempted immersing himself in his work. Sitting at his desk, he set himself the task of going over the household accounts, subtracting and multiplying and adding long columns of figures. Under normal circumstances this was a simple matter for his keen, mathematical mind, but, slowly, a face with a pert, dimpled chin, a lovely and expressive mouth with soft, full lips, cheeks as flushed as a ripe peach, and thickly fringed amethyst, velvety eyes crept unbidden into his mind—teasing him, tantalising him, laughing, beckoning him—fearing him.

      At this thought Alex leaned his head back against the chair and set down his quill, giving in to his reluctant musings. Fear! Having marked Angelina’s unexpected vulnerability when she’d cowered beneath the water, he now realised that that was what he’d seen in her eyes, but failed to recognize, when he’d threatened to join her in her bath. Then he remembered the words she had spoken before she’d left him and the pain in her voice—that she did not want to be close to any man, including him.

      Why? He was both puzzled and curious. What had happened to her? Did it all stem from the time the Indians had attacked her home? Had they attacked her? Was the cause of her determination to close her heart and mind on marriage, on men, something to do with the relationship that had existed between her parents—or something else of an entirely different nature that she dared not reveal to anyone?

      He directed his gaze to the window and his eye was caught by a mounted rider galloping across the park at breakneck pace. Frowning, he stood up, straining his eyes through the slightly distorted diamond panes better to recognise the person—which he did. Immediately. He was unable to believe his own eyes, as his gaze became impaled on the figure on the horse.

      It was Angelina.

      In the space of a heartbeat, fury had replaced Alex’s calm composure. He was furious that Angelina worried him with her recklessness, furious that she was able to evoke any kind of emotion in him at all. Clenching his fists, he stood and watched her. Crouched low over her horse’s neck with her face almost buried in the dancing mane, she rode as no lady should, in breeches and astride. There was simplicity and confidence as she soared over a hedge, at one with her mount, its tail floating behind like a bright defiant banner.

      Her mount!

      Alex’s face was almost comical in its expression of disbelief when his eyes shifted from the breeches-clad girl to the horse. It was Forest Shadow, a high-spirited, excitable sorrel stallion he’d purchased two months ago at Newmarket to introduce into his hunters. Forest Shadow presented a challenge to even the most accomplished rider, who would be hard pressed to keep the high-stepping animal under control. White with rage, he felt his body go rigid.

      ‘Of all the brazen, outrageous females,’ he said in a savage underbreath. When she had shot the rabbit, he would have sworn he was incapable of feeling more furious than he had then, but the rage that exploded inside him at that moment surmounted even that.

      Turning quickly, he strode to the door, jerking it open, the stallion bearing its young rider already a diminishing speck in the distance. How dare she ride out of the park alone after he’d forbidden her not to, and how dare she take that horse out of the stable when there wasn’t a lad employed by him who was willing to ride out on the animal? On the other hand, he thought with increasing fury as his long legs descended the stairs in leaping strides, that defiant, conniving, dark-eyed witch would dare anything.

      Jenkins waylaid Alex in the hall. He shot him an impatient look. ‘What is it?’ he demanded brusquely.

      ‘I was just coming to inform you that Sir Nathan Beresford and his wife Lady Verity arrived a few minutes ago, my lord. They are with Lady Fortesque in her room.’

      ‘Thank you, Jenkins,’ Alex replied. Brushing past the butler he stalked towards the door. ‘I have an urgent matter to attend to at the stables. Apologise for my absence and tell them I will be along directly.’

      On reaching the stables he cornered one of the lads. ‘Who gave Miss Hamilton permission to ride Forest Shadow?’ he demanded.

      ‘I don’t know, milord. She just appeared—saying she was going to ride him. We thought СКАЧАТЬ