Regency High Society Vol 3. Elizabeth Rolls

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СКАЧАТЬ her smile, as she settled herself on the floor at his feet.

      ‘I shall keep you company for a little moment. You have been up to see Mademoiselle Katherine and have assured yourself that she is well, no?’

      Katherine’s welfare had been the first thing about which he had enquired on his return to the house. ‘Yes,’ he muttered, as memory stirred. ‘And all I received for my pains was a hairbrush thrown at my head. Damnable little termagant!’

      Josephine’s gurgle of laughter was infectious, and Daniel found it impossible not to smile too. ‘Ah, yes, your Katherine certainly does not lack spirit.’

      He stared down for a moment into the large brown eyes twinkling up at him, before transferring his gaze to the contents of his glass. ‘What makes you suppose that she is my Katherine?’

      Full lips curled into a knowing smile. ‘If she is not already, then I suspect that it is your intention to make her so. And I am very happy for you, mon cher, even if it does mean that I have lost you.’

      The small hand resting lightly on his knee did little to ease his frustrations, and brought vividly to mind a very satisfying interlude they had enjoyed the previous year. ‘What makes you suppose that you have lost me?’ The husky timbre of his voice betrayed clearly enough his mounting desire. ‘Katherine as yet has no right to place demands upon me.’

      ‘Her affection and her trust give her the right, my friend,’ Josephine countered, before rising to her feet. ‘I think you know that I could happily lie with you again. But I shall not. Even a woman in my profession has her pride. I have never yet shared my bed with a man who has left it regretting that he had been there.’

      Daniel regarded her in silence for a moment above the rim of his glass. ‘And what makes you suppose that I would?’

      ‘Perhaps you would not until you had to face your Katherine again, and saw the hurt in her eyes, for she would know. She is no fool. Unless I am very much mistaken, she already suspects that you and I have found pleasure in each other, but she did not know you then. But she cares for you now. Do not hurt her needlessly. It would be better by far for you to face her with a clear conscience in the morning, so I shall place temptation out of reach.’

      With a rueful smile curling his lips, Daniel watched her leave. ‘You’re a damnably astute woman, Josephine Carre,’ he murmured, before returning his attention to the only solace he would receive that night, and finishing off the wine.

       Chapter Eleven

      ‘What the hell do you suppose you’re doing?’

      Katherine, who had been about to make the first judicious snip, almost jumped out of her skin, and was granted only sufficient time to recover from the shock of Daniel’s unexpected presence in the room before the scissors were snatched from her fingers.

      She had chosen to partake of breakfast in the bedchamber in an attempt to delay the inevitable encounter with him for as long as possible, and had spent no little time pondering over what his attitude towards her might be this morning. She had half-expected him to distance himself, as he had done before, only speaking when it was absolutely necessary, and then in a voice which bordered on the icily polite. At the very least she had anticipated a little reserve in his manner, and yet he was behaving just as though nothing untoward had occurred between them, adopting the same high-handed approach which had not infrequently irked her during their short but highly eventful association. Somehow, though, it made facing him again after the events of last night so very much easier, so she swiftly decided to follow his lead by revealing her own faint annoyance at his imperious attitude.

      ‘Well, I certainly wasn’t about to lop off an ear,’ she responded with thinly veiled sarcasm, while having no difficulty whatsoever in returning his angry gaze through the dressing-table mirror. ‘And hasn’t anyone ever told you that it is extremely rude to enter a lady’s bedchamber without knocking first? Also that it is most impolite to snatch.

      ‘I don’t know why you are glowering at me like a bear with a sore head,’ she went on when she quite failed to win an apology. ‘You informed me that I was to adopt the role of your nephew. It might have escaped your notice, but boys don’t generally wear their hair halfway down their backs.’

      If anything his expression darkened. ‘I cannot imagine why you are so out-of-all-reason cross,’ she continued, taking little heed of the angry sparkle in his dark eyes. ‘I thought you would be pleased that I was willing to sacrifice my hair for the role. After all, you dislike it intensely.’

      This did at last manage to elicit a response. ‘I’d like to know from where you gleaned that piece of utter nonsense,’ he retorted, placing the scissors well out of harm’s way and then reaching for the hairbrush. ‘Your hair must rate as possibly the most beautiful I’ve ever seen,’ he astounded her by admitting, before making use of the hairbrush and sweeping the rich auburn locks gently back from her face, and securing them at the nape of her neck with a length of ribbon.

      It was the total sincerity in his voice that astonished Katherine as much as anything else, and in an attempt to hide her confusion she proffered a mild joke. ‘You missed your vocation in life, Major Ross. You would have made an excellent lady’s maid.’

      ‘Any more remarks like that, young woman, and I shall apply this hairbrush none too gently to quite a different part of your anatomy,’ he threatened, with a swift return to his former domineering manner. ‘Which would be no more than you deserve, after hurling the wretched thing at me last night.’

      Evidently he was not in the least reticent to allude to the incident, but Katherine wasn’t so certain whether the memory of those more tender moments was one that he found difficult to forget, or simply did not wish to do so, for his expression was quite unreadable as he handed her the hat that he had acquired to complete her disguise.

      ‘Yes, very neat,’ he approved, after watching her secure her hair beneath the rim, and scrutinising her overall appearance. ‘Providing no one looks at you too closely, you’d pass for a lad. Now, if you’re ready, we’d best be on our way. Josephine has kindly put her carriage at our disposal. But first, she wishes to make her farewells.’

      They discovered both the carriage and its owner awaiting them in the courtyard at the front of the house. None of them chose to linger long over the leave-taking, although Katherine did promise, before finally clambering into the carriage, to visit Paris again when Josephine had acquired her house overlooking the Seine.

      ‘You sounded as if you genuinely meant that,’ Daniel remarked as he made himself comfortable in the seat opposite, and they commenced the last stage of their journey through France.

      ‘I did,’ she assured him. ‘Although I might not wholeheartedly approve of the way Madame Carre earns a living, I cannot help but admire her spirit and determination. What she was forced to endure during her marriage would have destroyed a lesser woman.’

      ‘Possibly,’ he agreed.

      ‘Furthermore, it does not necessarily follow that, just because she runs a bawdy house, she need participate in any of the activities that take place beneath its roof. In fact, I gained the distinct impression last night that she spends most of her evenings entertaining guests in the card-room, though I do not suppose for a moment that she would refuse to be—er—private with a gentleman if he should appeal to her.’

      Thankful now that he had spent the night alone on the couch, Daniel was able to return that penetrating СКАЧАТЬ