His Duty, Her Destiny. Juliet Landon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ me, George. You forgot. Admit it. At least he now knows, as you do too, that I’ve just given him no more or less than he damn well deserves. It would hardly have penetrated his thick skull, anyway.’ She turned her face away angrily, recalling that morning’s shameful episode. ‘He’s done far more than that to me and nobody ever demanded an apology from him. Monster!’

      There was a quick unseen movement of her brother’s handsome eyebrows and a tightening of the lips to prevent a smile. He reached out a hand to clasp hers, well aware that there was much more to her hostility than she was saying.

      ‘George,’ she said, suspecting some imminent persuasion, ‘there’s really no more to be said.’ Sideways, she observed the long mulberry brocade cote-hardie with its precise pleats beneath the red leather belt. Everything about him proclaimed wealth and good breeding with never a trace of ostentation.

      ‘Yes, there is.’ He kept hold of her hand, and she knew that there was indeed more to be said and that she was not nearly so dismissive as she pretended to be. ‘In spite of the insults just now, Nick, Fergus is still willing to offer for you. He made a promise to his father when he was dying. Ferg was wounded in the same skirmish. They were fighting off pirates.’

      ‘Promise, fiddlesticks!’ she scoffed. ‘George, what nonsense.’ Her laughter did not last long, for she felt again the hard intimate pressure of Fergus’s body upon hers and knew instinctively that it could not have been the first time he had held a woman like that. Or exposed her breast, for that matter. ‘You’ve got it wrong. Whatever he’s told you, you’ve misunderstood. He no more wants to marry me than I do him, and if he’s told you different then he’s lying. There was never a moment when he could find a civil word to say to me, and most of the time I might not have been there at all. Why would he suddenly come and offer for my hand if not for links with the Coldynghams?’

      It took little effort for her to remember the time she had placed her eleven-year-old hand in Fergus’s while he was looking the other way. Without a word or a smile, he had pulled his hand away as if it had been scalded, leaving her close to tears at an insensitivity she could not begin to understand. She had never forgotten the snub, nor had she ever repeated the attempt. Even now, when she might have been expected to know how an age difference of five years will eventually close and disappear, the recurring humiliation of being a female child trying to hold her own against older lads in their own peer group had stayed in her tender young psyche and refused to fade with time. She had not nurtured it, just not forgotten the pain of rejection that accompanied each of his visits when only blind hero-worship forbade her to stop trying for his approval.

      Consequently, she had made a fool of herself time and again to the embarrassed amusement of all her brothers except Ramond. He had been the one to go back for her, the one who would pick dock leaves to salve her nettle-stings, the one to help her down a tree when the others had deserted her to follow Fergus. Dear Ramond. He was the offspring of the second Lady Coldyngham; George and Daniel shared the first. Nicola and Patrick shared the third, though she had died at Patrick’s birth. When an unexpected girl had arrived to interrupt the flow of lads, the chosen name had only needed to be docked by one letter to make it suitable. Similarly with the middle names: Leonie for Leo, Phillipa for Phillip.

      ‘It’s not nonsense,’ said George, ‘nor do I believe for one moment that Fergus is merely seeking a connection. I’m telling you, he wants to marry you. He’s changed, Nick.’

      Nicola jumped to her feet, snatching her hand away in annoyance. ‘He has not, George. He’s not changed one whit. And I’ll be damned if I’ll give myself to that…that churl just because of his father’s promises. He can go and look elsewhere for his breeding stock. I can have my pick of lords and earls any time I choose. Tell him he’s too late. Tell him I’d rather stay unmarried for the rest of my life than accept his patronising offer. Condescending…overbearing…superior…highhanded…’ Slowly, very slowly, her salvo fizzled out as she shook her head, her eyes filling with sudden tears. ‘Isn’t it ironic?’ she whispered.

      Surprised, George watched the transformation from indignant woman to rueful child. ‘Come here, love,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Tell me what’s ironic. That Fergus should want you, after all?’

      She allowed him to pull her back to sit by his side again, reluctant to complete an admission she had never voiced, even to herself. ‘That when we were children, I would have done anything for him. Anything. I thought he was… Oh, this is ridiculous, George.’

      ‘You admired him so much?’

      ‘Worshipped him, more like. I would have been happy for him just to smile at me, speak kindly to me, but he rarely looked my way. All he came to Coldyngham Park for was to be with you and the others. I suppose I should have had a sister, then I wouldn’t have pretended to be one of you, would I?’ She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her knuckles, trying to laugh it off. ‘But then, I was a silly child. I knew no better. Now, I don’t care for anyone’s approval. I don’t need anything he has to offer.’

      ‘Still hurting after all these years, love?’

      Unconsciously, one hand moved upwards to press a palm upon her breast where a nagging sting lay just beneath her chemise. ‘No,’ she said, so softly that George had to look to see the word. ‘No, I don’t care a fig who he marries as long as it’s not me. I know what he’s like, George. I can do better than that.’

      ‘You know that you insulted him.’

      ‘Yes. And he’ll not expect me to apologise.’

      ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

      ‘Just take my word for it.’

      George’s silence did not mean that he had nothing to say. This time, he was thinking that for both Fergus and Nicola to deny the need for an apology, Fergus must have done some insulting of his own. And the only thing George could add to the picture was a stolen kiss. That might explain their very obvious silence regarding that earlier meeting. ‘You’ll be with us for supper later on?’ he said. ‘Charlotte’s birthday. A few friends, that’s all.’

      ‘Yes, I’d not forgotten. You’ll allow the children to be there?’

      He smiled. ‘I shall get into the gravest trouble if they miss you.’

      Whether Nicola suspected that one of the ‘few friends’ might include Sir Fergus, she made no further mention of him until George asked if she would come and say farewell. ‘Excuse me this once,’ she said, placing her hand over his. ‘You invited him here, you show him the way home.’

      He picked up her hand and kissed the knuckles, levering himself up from the fountain wall. ‘Until this evening then, love.’

      ‘George…’ she said, holding him back by a finger.

      He stopped and waited.

      ‘George, you’re not going to insist on this…this promise thing, are you? I know it’s what Father wanted and I suppose he must have had a good reason, but I don’t think he’d have insisted, would he?’

      Gently, he shook her hand, though there was no smile to make light of it. ‘Of course I shall not insist. Whatever gave you that idea and, in any case, what good would it do? I don’t have any power to hold back your inheritance because you’ve got it already. Anyway, you know what my thoughts are about women being allowed to choose their own husbands.’ He came to sit by her side again, closer this time. ‘Nobody’s going to insist,’ he said, looking into her darkly troubled eyes. ‘But…’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ