A Stolen Heart. Candace Camp

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СКАЧАТЬ what she had been about to do. She jerked away from Lord Thorpe, moving farther into the room as she tried to bring her rapid breathing back to normal. “What—what nonsense you talk!”

      Thorpe followed her into the room, but he did not touch her again, as she had feared. She felt curiously let down. Sternly, she tried to focus on the room. It was large and furnished entirely in teak. From the desk and the shelves of books behind it, Alexandra identified it as Lord Thorpe’s study. An ornately engraved rifle hung on one wall, and below it hung a sword with a wide hilt made of ebony and steel, also engraved. In one corner stood an unusual shirt of chain mail armor with metal plates across the chest and a long mail neck guard hanging down around the helmet on three sides. The edge of the neck guard was bordered in red velvet, and gold inlay was worked across the chest plates.

      “Indian armor?” Alexandra asked with real interest, going over to study it. She tried not to think about how his hands had felt on her arms or the way she had yearned to press herself against him.

      “Yes. It belonged to a Mogul officer from the last century.” Lord Thorpe’s voice was as calm as if the moment in the doorway had never happened. “The rifle was a present to me from a rajah.”

      “Really?”

      He nodded. “I happened to be with him on a hunt and shot a tiger that had him targeted for lunch. He gave me the rifle and several trinkets in gratitude. The trinkets turned out to be sapphires and rubies.”

      “You’re joking.”

      “No. I sold them and bought my first piece of land.”

      “A tea plantation?”

      Thorpe nodded, somewhat surprised to find himself telling Alexandra the story of his early years in India. He had told very few people anything about what happened to him there. But, somehow, looking into Alexandra’s huge brown eyes, alive with interest, he felt little hesitation. She might know as little about the place or people as any of the other young ladies he knew, but one thing he was certain of was that her interest was genuine. It occurred to him that perhaps there was something to be said for Miss Ward’s policy of frankness. “I spent every bit of profit I made investing in land. Eventually I bought a piece that connected the rest of my plantation to the sea. It had a lovely white beach. I was walking along it one day and stepped on this dull round stone, but when I lifted it up, I saw that it wasn’t like other stones. It was an unpolished ruby.”

      “On the sand?” Alexandra asked in astonishment.

      He nodded. “Yes. About the size of a gold sovereign. I’ve never been so shocked in my life.” He smiled faintly, remembering the heat of the sun on his shoulders, the sound of the surf crashing nearby, the pounding excitement in his heart as he had stared at the stone. “A stream ran through there, joining the sea, and it had washed the ruby and several other stones down, depositing them on the beach. I found some other small rubies and a number of sapphires. So I started mining the stream and the area around it. And that is how the tea plantation became my secondary business.”

      “So you own a ruby mine?”

      “Mostly sapphires. But I sold it before I moved back to England. I kept the plantation because I had a very good manager, but the mine—well, I find, like you, that things don’t run very well without one’s personal effort.” He shot her an amused glance.

      “You have lived a very exciting life.” It was no wonder, she thought, that a dangerous air clung to him.

      Thorpe shrugged. “I have done what I had to do.”

      Alexandra raised a brow. “You have to admit that you have done things few of the rest of us have—lived in exotic lands, shot tigers, found gemstones littering the sands….”

      He chuckled. “It sounds more exciting than it seemed at the time. Then it mostly seemed like heat and sweat and trying to escape death.”

      “That is what my uncle says about the War. He says everyone always wants to think of it as romantic and brave and daring, but mostly it was dirt and sweat and fear.”

      “The War?”

      “Yes. You know. That small war thirty-odd years ago in America…”

      “Ah, yes.” He quirked a smile. “The conflict in the colonies. Fortunately, I wasn’t in the tea business at the time.”

      Alexandra chuckled. “You take, I see, a large view of world affairs.”

      Thorpe went to his safe, unlocked it and took out two packets of soft cloth. He laid them on his desk and unwrapped the first one. On the velvet lay an old necklace. Seven separate pieces of enameled gold dangled from the circlet by separate strings of emerald beads.

      “It’s beautiful. It looks quite old.” Alexandra leaned closer.

      “It is. It’s called a satratana. Each of these sections represents a planet in the Indian astrological system.”

      “Fascinating,” Alexandra murmured. “It is such beautiful workmanship.”

      He unrolled the other cloth, revealing a necklace of startling beauty made of sapphires and diamonds, with a large sapphire pendant hanging from the center.

      “Are these from your mine?” Alexandra asked.

      Thorpe suppressed a smile. Every other woman who had seen the necklace had practically salivated over it, caressing the jewels and holding it up to her throat. He supposed it should not surprise him that Miss Ward seemed more interested in the background of the jewels.

      “Yes.” Perversely, he found himself wanting to see the jewels around her neck, though she had not asked.

      “Was this a gift to your wife?”

      “I have no wife. I intended this piece for no one,” he answered harshly, pushing aside the memory of the woman whose neck he had envisioned it on, knowing even as he did so that he would never see it.

      He began to roll the necklace up in its velvet, then paused and looked at her consideringly. “Did you think I had a wife and yet was—” He glanced toward the doorway.

      “Making advances to me?”

      “Yes, making advances to you in my own wife’s home. You must think me a very low creature.”

      Alexandra shrugged. “I know nothing about you, sir. I mean, my lord. You were, after all, intimating that I was putting myself in danger by being alone with you. If you are the sort to take advantage of a woman alone, I would suppose the fact of a wife would not stop you.”

      He winced. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

      “I try not to.” Alexandra softened her words with a smile, a dimple peeking in one cheek. “Actually, I did not think you were the sort. But I have always found it best not to assume too much.”

      “Mm.” He wrapped the other necklace and returned them to the safe.

      “Where is the original ruby?” Alexandra asked. “Did you keep it?”

      He smiled at her intuition. “Yes. Would you like to see it?”

      “Very much—if СКАЧАТЬ