Married: The Virgin Widow. Deborah Hale

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СКАЧАТЬ Ford’s wrath up so quickly. It took all his selfcontrol to school his tone to one of cool irony. “You sound surprised. Did you expect me to return from the Indies in rags? I will have you know, I amassed a considerable fortune during the past seven years.”

      “I congratulate you.” Laura could not disguise the silvery glint of avarice in her eyes. “What made you leave all that behind and travel so far for the sake of a modest country estate?”

      Did she despise the place? Was that why she had not hesitated to deprive him of it? “Hawkesbourne and the family title have always been more important to me than any amount of money, Lady Kingsfold. That sounds awkward, doesn’t it? Perhaps you would prefer I call you something else?”

      He could think of a great many things he would like to call her, none of them flattering.

      His suggestion set Laura in motion. Or perhaps it was some menace in his stare that he could not fully conceal. She hurried about the room, lighting candles with the one she had brought. “We were once on friendly enough terms to call each other by our given names. Could we not continue?”

      She still moved with rhythmic grace, as if every step were part of some bewitching dance. Once she ran out of candles to light, Laura came to stand a few feet in front from him and fixed him with an inquiring look. Jolted out of his bemusement, Ford recalled her question. Did she mean they should take up again as if the past seven years had never happened? Though that would play perfectly into his plans, the heartless audacity of her suggestion infuriated him. He paused for a moment, weighing his reply.

      Meanwhile his gaze ranged greedily over Laura, comparing her present appearance with the golden ideal of his memory. He had once thought her eyes as clear and candid a blue as the summer sky. Now they were clouded with secrets, perhaps even capable of passionate storms. Her face was thinner than it had been, making her wide jaw look stronger. But her lips were as full and potently inviting as he remembered—like some succulent tropical fruit at the peak of ripeness.

      “I must confess, I never think of you as Lady Kingsfold…Laura.” He found it impossible to say her name without his tongue caressing it.

      Though her features betrayed no sign that she noticed or cared, the flame of the candle she held suddenly flickered out. “I must apologise for offering you such poor hospitality. If we had known you were coming, we would have contrived something better.”

      The gall of the woman! Welcoming him into his own house when it was clear she considered him as welcome as the plague. No doubt she’d hoped he would stay half a world away so she could continue to play the lady of the manor at his expense.

      “Perhaps you wish I had warned you of my arrival.” Ford spoke more sharply than he intended. “So you could have contrived to be elsewhere.”

      “No, indeed!” A flash of distant lightning blazed in the summer sky of her eyes. It must vex her that he saw through her mask of courtesy to the disdain she truly felt for him. “Though I will admit, that is partly because I have nowhere else to go.”

      “You cannot mean that.” Ford drew back abruptly and began to stalk around the room, circling her at a wary distance. “According to the solicitor’s letter, you inherited all my cousin’s personal assets, while the estate fell to me by entail. Surely a beautiful young widow possessed of such a fortune is at liberty to go wherever she wishes.”

      Damn! He had not meant to call her beautiful, even if it was truer now than ever. From there it was but a short, treacherous step to admitting her beauty affected him.

      Laura refused to acknowledge his compliment. “I assure you, what I inherited from your cousin was no fortune and now it is almost gone.”

      Her words stopped Ford in his tracks. If she was telling the truth, what had become of his cousin’s money?

      Chapter Two

      So Ford thought she’d been living in luxury on his cousin’s fortune. Had he cultivated that belief to assuage any bothersome twinges of conscience over his past behaviour toward her?

      Even from several feet away, Laura marked the sudden jump of his dark brows and the brief slackening of his tight-clenched jaw. This was not precisely the way she’d meant to surprise him. But it would do. Anything to jar him out of his frosty composure.

      Perhaps then she might not feel quite so vulnerable in her own unsettled feelings. Her first glimpse of Ford Barrett after seven long years had flustered her even more than she’d expected. Not that he was the same ardent, charming young man she remembered. Time had changed him in many ways.

      The pitiless Indian sun had darkened his skin to the color of a Barbary pirate’s. The wild black curls she had once loved to twine around her fingers had been cropped to short, severe stubble. His mouth, once so mobile, was now set in an unyielding line. The years had chiselled his features into a visage of stark, savage beauty. Eyes, once the warm, soft green of new moss, were now hard and cool as jade.

      Had all those changes been wrought by the passing years and his experiences in the Orient? Or had he always been such a forceful, ruthless man, while she’d been too naïve to see it?

      “My cousin’s fortune all gone?” Ford spoke in a bemused murmur. “How is that possible?”

      His tone of disbelief galled her. Did he suppose she would continue to live in this decaying old mansion, crammed to the rafters with painful memories, if she’d possessed the means to go elsewhere? Did he imagine she would have stayed to be subjected to his mocking condescension?

      Staring at him over the hump of a dustdraped chaise-longue, she refused to be cowed. “Losing money is a great deal easier than gaining it. Rising expenses. Bad investments. The years since the war have brought hardship to many in this country. Perhaps you were not aware of it, being so far away, in lands where luxuries are cheap and fortunes easily made.”

      Harsh laughter burst from Ford. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

      His scathing tone reminded Laura so much of his cousin’s, it made the flesh on the back of her neck prickle. The deep timbre of his voice, once a mellow caress upon her ears, now had a hoarse, raspy edge.

      “Those items you consider luxuries may be cheap in the East, on account of being so plentiful. If cinnamon came from the bark of elm trees or cloves from the buds of myrtle bushes, no one in England would think them such rare extravagances. In the Indies, items you might hold of little value—iron cooking pots, glassware, printed cotton—are the costly luxuries.”

      Every word struck Laura like a stinging blow, driven by contempt and sharpened with ridicule. That Ford was correct in everything he said did not lessen the insult. That his handsome, arrogant presence overwhelmed her with such intense awareness made it ten times worse! She did not dare reply for fear of saying something so offensive he might take out his anger on her mother and sisters. She’d been relieved to discover he was wealthy, only because it meant he might not grudge her family houseroom.

      Ford emerged from behind the draped chaise-longue and approached her with deliberate, intimidating steps. “As for my fortune being easily gained, you could not be more mistaken. There are opportunities in the East, but for a man to take full advantage of them, he must work hard, take risks and be ruthless when necessary.”

      As each word brought him closer, Laura stood her ground against his steady, menacing approach. On no account must she let СКАЧАТЬ