The Unmasking of Lady Loveless. Nicola Cornick
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Название: The Unmasking of Lady Loveless
Автор: Nicola Cornick
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9781408911068
isbn:
“Please come in, sir,” she said. “You must be Dr. Abbott’s nephew. Thank you for coming so promptly, although I fear you had a wasted journey. Mama will not see visitors today.” She could not quite keep the exasperation from her tone, no matter how she tried. “Indeed, it is very bad of her to put everyone to so much trouble, particularly when she knows we cannot afford to pay—” He stepped into the light and she turned to look at him properly for the first time. For one long, agonizing moment her mind refused to accept the evidence of her eyes.
“But you are not the doctor!” she said foolishly. “You are…” Her voice dwindled to nothing.
The gentleman raised one dark brow in mockery, then bowed elegantly.
“Your husband,” he said. “Indeed I am.”
Melicent stared at him in wordless recognition. “Alex…”
Shock made her stomach turn over. It seemed impossible. She could not even begin to frame the questions that jostled in her mind.
“Why are you here?” she said. It seemed the best place to start.
Alex moved farther into the lamplit hall, and she could see what the shadows had previously hidden—the thick brown hair, the thoughtful dark eyes, the clean, hard lines of his face. He did not look a day older than when she had seen him last. He still showed the expensive tailoring, the air of unconscious authority and the town bronze that came from years of privilege. She had always felt like a country mouse beside his casual elegance. A hot wave of mortification swept over her as she looked down at her drab gown with its pulled threads.
“I came to find you.” His voice was deep and it struck a chord inside her that made her shiver a little. “I thought that we had been apart too long.” His gaze appraised her thoughtfully. “You look beautiful, Melicent.”
It took her breath away even as her mind protested that it could not be true. Heat swept through her as she stood beneath his disturbingly intimate and lazy gaze, heat that had nothing to do with the fire burning in the drawing room. He looked too masculine, too virile to be in the dull, dark atmosphere of the cottage. Melicent pressed her hands together nervously, and in doing so caught sight of her stained and frayed apron. A feeling of embarrassment replaced the sensation of sensual awareness. Whatever he said, she knew that she looked worn and old. Worse, she had inadvertently spilled to him various details such as her mother’s hypochondria, her own exasperation and their straitened financial circumstances. And that was before he was barely in the door.
“You should have told us that you were coming.” She resisted the urge to press her palms to her hot cheeks. “I hope you have not had too difficult a journey? The roads can be treacherous this time of year.” She looked about them at the painfully bleak and unwelcoming hallway. She had not even had the time to decorate it with wintergreen to celebrate Christmas. Not that she had felt like celebrating anything this year.
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