Seduction of an English Beauty. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ foolishness about a proper introduction before the governess could start it up again. “I am Lady Diana Farren and this is my governess Miss Wood, and we are delighted to make the acquaintance of two English gentlemen in this foreign place.”

      The clergyman’s expression was so dazzled and doting it was almost foolish. Diana smiled cheerfully, accustomed to the effect her beauty had on men. It wasn’t anything she did: it just happened.

      “There now,” Lord Edward said heartily. “I told you I’d discovered true ladies, uncle. Lady Diana, you may be delighted, but I—I am enchanted, and honored, too.”

      “Her ladyship is the youngest daughter of His Grace the Duke of Aston, my lords,” Miss Wood announced sternly, ever vigilant, and Diana could almost feel her reprimand hanging in the damp air. “Her ladyship is not interested in intrigues, my lord. She is traveling through Italy in thoughtful pursuit of knowledge and learning.”

      “Then you must be her guide in such education, Miss Wood,” said Reverend Lord Patterson, slapping his velvet cap back onto his head so he could hold his hand out to Miss Wood. “What a paragon of learning you must be yourself, Miss Wood, if his grace has entrusted his daughter’s education and welfare to your hands.”

      To Diana’s amazement, a flush of pink flooded Miss Wood’s pale cheeks as the minister shook her hand.

      “You are too kind, reverend my lord,” her governess said. “But I can think of no more noble calling than to guide his grace’s daughter, and to strive to improve her mind and character, as well as my own.”

      “Of course, of course.” Reverend Lord Patterson nodded eagerly. “Might I show you my latest acquisition, Miss Wood? Surely a woman of your scholarly inclinations will appreciate the workmanship of this, from a painted amphora that was already ancient in the times of the Caesars.”

      “Thank you very kindly, reverend my lord,” Miss Wood said, already heading to the table with more eagerness than Diana could ever recall witnessing. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

      Diana turned back to Lord Edward, looking up at him wryly from beneath her lashes. “You arranged that quite tidily, didn’t you?”

      He placed his hand over his heart. “I should rather believe it was fate, my lady, bringing me closer to you.”

      “I don’t believe a word of that,” she scoffed, “and neither do you.”

      His brows rose, his open hand still planted firmly upon his chest. “You don’t believe in fate?”

      “Not like that, no,” she said. She took a single step away from him, taking care to make her white muslin skirts drift gracefully around her legs. “Rather I believe that we control our own lives and destinies, with the free will that God gave us. Otherwise we’d be no better than rudderless skiffs, tossed about on a river’s current. That’s what I believe. As, I suspect, do you.”

      He sighed, and at last let his hand drop from his chest. “You suspect me already, my lady?”

      She smiled, letting him think whatever he pleased. “What I suspect, Lord Edward, isn’t you in general, but your actions.”

      “My actions?” he asked, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. “Why, I’ve only known you for half an hour!”

      “More than enough time, however noble your motives may be.” She spread her fan, fluttering it languidly beneath her chin as she walked slowly towards the far window. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much since she’d left England. “I suspect that you are as bored as I here in Rome, with all the best people still away at their villas for the summer.”

      “Not at all!” he exclaimed. “Why, I’ve only—”

      “Please, my lord, I’m not yet done,” she said softly, making him listen even harder. “I suspect that you came to the common room across the hall with full intention of meeting me. And I suspect you somehow contrived for your uncle to entertain Miss Wood and thus leave us together, as we are now. Those are my suspicions regarding you, my lord.”

      “I see.” He clasped his hands behind his waist and frowned, thinking, as he followed her. “Yet now you’ll fault me because I did not wait for fate to toss you into my path, but bravely bent circumstance to my own will?”

      “Oh, I never said I faulted you, my lord,” she said, her smile blithe. “I said first that I suspected you did not believe in fate any more than I, and then I offered my other suspicions to prove it.”

      He raised his chin a fraction, the line of his jaw strong in the muted light. “Then I find favor with you, my lady, and not fault?”

      “Not yet,” she said, as he came to stand beside her in the window’s alcove. “But I must say, it’s unusual for a gentleman to be so forthright in his attentions.”

      “I’ve no desire to be your rudderless boat, my lady,” he said. “Consider me the river’s current instead, ready to carry you along with me wherever you please.”

      She laughed softly, intrigued. Most gentlemen were too awed by the combination of her beauty and her father’s power to speak so decisively. She liked that; she liked him. What would he be like as a husband? she wondered, the face she’d wake to see each morning for the rest of her life? “And where exactly do you propose to carry me, Lord Edward?”

      He made a gallant half bow. “Wherever you please, my lady.”

      “But where do you please, Lord Edward?” she asked. “Or should I ask you how?”

      “How I please?” He chuckled. “There are some things I’d prefer to demonstrate rather than merely to explain, Lady Diana.”

      “You forget yourself, my lord.” She laughed behind her fan, taking the sting from her reprimand, and pointedly glanced past him to her governess and his uncle, their heads bent close over the broken crockery. “This is neither the place nor the time.”

      He grinned, not in the least contrite, and leaned back against one side of the alcove with his arms folded over his chest. “We’ll speak of Rome instead. That’s safe enough, isn’t it?”

      She shrugged and leaned back against the other side of the window opposite him, leaving him to decide what was safe and what wasn’t. The rain had dwindled to a steamy mist, the sun brightening behind the clouds.

      “There are so many attractions in Rome, my lady, both ancient and modern,” he continued. “It’s why we English make this journey, isn’t it? Our choices are boundless.”

      She wrinkled her nose, and turned away from him to gaze out at the red-tiled rooftops and dripping cypress trees. “No tedious museums or dusty old churches, I beg you. I’ve enough of that with Miss Wood, traipsing across France and Italy with her lecturing me at every step.”

      “But this is Rome,” he said, “and I promise I can make even the dustiest old ruin interesting.”

      “I’m no bluestocking, Lord Edward,” she warned. “Broken-down buildings are never interesting.”

      “With me, they would be.”

      She shrugged, feigning indifference. In truth she couldn’t СКАЧАТЬ