The Wallflower's Mistletoe Wedding. Amanda McCabe

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СКАЧАТЬ said, grasping Rose’s hand and drawing her forward. Jane was the kindest of women, but always most assiduous in her hostess duties. She would never just let a wallflower be a wallflower.

      Rose flashed a quick smile at Emma, who smiled back uncomfortably. She looked as if she wanted to run for the safety of the comfortably shabby library as much as Rose did.

      But then Rose turned to face Jane’s newly arrived guests—and froze. All thoughts of fleeing, all thoughts at all, were quite gone.

      A gentleman had just stepped through the front door and what a gentleman he was. He looked rather like something Rose would picture in one of the romantic French novels Lily liked to read aloud in the evenings—a man tall, dark and mysterious. His expression was quite solemn and wary as he studied the crowd, as if he was thinking of possible battle lines rather than dancing.

      He certainly did have the bearing of a soldier, lean and ramrod-straight, his shoulders strong beneath the cut of his dark blue evening coat, his sun-darkened skin set off by a plain white cravat. His hair, so dark it was almost a blue-black, like a winter’s night, waved back from his forehead, and his eyes were a velvet brown. He had a strange stillness, a perfect watchfulness, almost a—a menace about him, but one that was enticing rather than frightening. He was quite unlike anyone else she had ever seen.

      ‘Harry, how delightful you could come tonight after all,’ Jane was saying, once Rose could tear her attention away from the man’s mesmerising handsomeness and hear the roar of the party again. ‘We did hear you were off to battle in Sicily.’

      ‘A soldier has to keep busy however he can.’ The man smiled as he bowed over Jane’s hand and it quite transformed him. He went from wary stillness to sunny charm in an instant, a dimple appearing in his sun-browned cheek that made Rose want to giggle like a schoolgirl. ‘But it seems they don’t need my assistance at this very moment. How could I resist the chance to see you again, Lady Ramsay? It’s been much too long since you brightened the dull London ballrooms. Hayden is a beast to keep you away.’

      Jane laughed and waved her lace fan at him. ‘Silly flatterer. I know you are merely counting the seconds until you can escape to the library for a brandy with Hayden and a talk about your beastly battlefields. But it’s lovely to see you again all the same, safe and sound. And you, Charles! Where on earth have you been keeping yourself?’

      Rose was able to tear her gaze from the dark, poetic brooder for a moment to see another man standing just behind him. He was also tall, also handsome, with a cheerful smile and bright golden hair, and the same brown eyes as the first man. But though he was just as good looking, he did not have the same frightening magnetism.

      ‘Nowhere as useful as my brother, I assure you, Lady Ramsay,’ he said with a bow. ‘But I haven’t had a proper dance in ages and, unlike Harry, I miss it more than I can say.’

      ‘That is one thing I can promise here. I hired the best orchestra from miles around.’ Jane drew Rose and Emma forward. ‘Emma, Rose, may I present two of our neighbours? Captain Henry St George, who was a great hero at Waterloo, and his brother, Mr Charles St George. Gentlemen, this my sister, Mrs Emma Carrington, and my cousin Miss Rose Parker.’

      Charles was the first to bow to them, with grand courtly flourishes that made Rose laugh and even had Emma smiling. ‘Ladies, I fear that unlike my dashing brother I am hero of very little except the billiards room, but I do claim some proficiency at waltzing, if you will do me the honour?’

      Emma did laugh—the first time Rose had heard it since the young widow had returned to Barton—but Rose could still not find a way to tear her attention completely away from Captain St George. How very intriguing he looked, with his wry flash of a smile!

      ‘Do you live near Barton, Miss Parker?’ he asked, his voice low and deep, almost rough. He watched her closely, as if he listened only to her in the whole room.

      ‘Oh,’ Rose answered, and for an instant it was as if every word she had ever known flew out of her mind. She had to laugh at herself; it was quite unlike the sensible nature she usually prided herself on. Yet she comforted herself that no lady could surely be entirely immune from such a pair of eyes when they were focused so closely on oneself.

      ‘Not too far,’ she said. ‘We used to visit often when we were children, my sister and I, and hunt for treasure with Jane and Emma.’

      He smiled, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Treasure? That does sound intriguing.’

      ‘Oh, it was!’ she said, absurdly pleased to have ‘intrigued’ him. She found she wanted more than anything to make him smile that smile at her again. ‘It is a wonderful old tale, about the lover of a Royalist soldier, Arabella Bancroft, hiding a royal fortune on the grounds of the estate, in the hope she and her love would one day be reunited to spend it together. Or something like that. We were quite hazy on the details when we were children.’

      ‘And did you ever find it?’

      ‘No, not even a farthing. It’s just a legend, of course, but we did have some marvellous adventures digging for it in the woods. We would climb the trees and pretend we were the Royalists defending our fortress from Cromwell, with tree trunks for cannons...’ She suddenly remembered he was a true captain, a hero of the terrible carnage at Waterloo, and felt her cheeks turn warm. ‘Not at all like real battle, of course.’

      A shadow flickered over his smile and he glanced away. ‘Much more fun, though, I would wager. Real battle is all mud and noise, I fear, Miss Parker. But trees and branches as guns—just fun.’

      Rose nervously twitched her skirts into place, feeling terrible at reminding him of such things when he was meant to be enjoying himself at Jane’s party. Not for the first time, she wished she had some of Lily’s gift of easy laughter and chatter. ‘I am sure it was. I’m sorry for bringing up any bad memories, Captain.’

      He gave her a wry smile. ‘The memories are always there, Miss Parker, but they don’t plague me on a night like this.’ He paused to adjust a glove. ‘And did they ever find each other again?’

      ‘Find each other?’ she said, confused.

      ‘Arabella Bancroft and her Royalist.’

      ‘Oh. No. He never came back. I think she married someone else in the end and abandoned Barton Park.’

      ‘Then there is hope the treasure is still out there.’

      ‘I never thought of it like that,’ Rose exclaimed. ‘Perhaps it is.’

      Captain St George’s brother suddenly turned towards them with a grin. ‘Harry, I have just secured Mrs Carrington’s promise for the first dance and Lady Ramsay tells me there are not yet enough couples for a proper set. You must find yourself a partner and do your bit for the party.’

      ‘Charlie, you know I am hopeless dancer indeed,’ the Captain protested.

      ‘Of course you are not!’ Charles said. ‘Do not be an old stick in the mud again. Aren’t you all about doing your duty? Well, being merry is your only duty tonight.’

      Harry laughed, and turned back to Rose. ‘Well, then, Miss Parker. Would you be brave enough to take me on for the first dance? With fair warning that grace is not my strong suit.’

      Rose was not at all sure that could be true. He had such a lean, coiled stillness, she imagined that in motion he would be as elegant and lethal as СКАЧАТЬ