The Rake's Enticing Proposal. Lara Temple
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Название: The Rake's Enticing Proposal

Автор: Lara Temple

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Историческая литература

Серия: Mills & Boon Historical

isbn: 9781474089173

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ was disconcertingly handsome, his face worthy of a renaissance sculpture, all sharp angles and hard planes, its harshness softened only by the fullness of his lower lip and the lines of laughter and mockery at the corners of his steel-grey eyes.

      She was surprised Drusilla and Fenella weren’t infatuated with this unfairly endowed specimen of manhood, or perhaps they had once been and his light-hearted teasing cured them—he might look like a fairy-tale hero, or perhaps even a villain, but he certainly did not act like one. Heroes tended to take themselves seriously, but Chase Sinclair did not appear to take anything seriously, least of all himself.

      But as she waited for his response, she again felt the presence of an inner shadow, as if another person entirely was moving behind the handsome façade, considering how to wield it to his advantage.

      ‘Very well,’ he said at last, placing his hand on a stack of slim leather-bound books on the desk. ‘These notebooks contain my cousin’s accounts of his travels in Egypt. All the years I knew him he always kept them in order and in custom-made trunks, but as you can see that is no longer the case.’

      Ellie glanced from the stack on the desk to the shelves he indicated and realised they, too, were populated not only by books and curios, but also stacks of brown-leather volumes.

      ‘My goodness, there are hundreds of them!’

      ‘Possibly. I would like to send them to my sister at Sinclair Hall, but first I want to put them in order, so I can ascertain if any are missing and hunt them down in this paper bog Huxley created. I wonder what Mallory was up to allow matters to deteriorate like this. He was always a stickler for neatness.’

      ‘Are you speaking of Mr Mallory? His secretary?’

      ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

      She smiled. ‘Why, yes. Well, not very well. I met him on two occasions when he visited Henry’s father before he passed away. He did strike me as a very competent and serious young man. I do hope the notebooks are dated, at least?’

      ‘The notebooks aren’t, but the entries are, so with some you may have to leaf through them to find a dated entry. If you prefer not to...’

      Ellie planted her hands on her hips. It would be a relief to do something useful to keep her mind off her woes.

      ‘I shall be happy to help. I shall need some pen and paper so I can keep a record of the ones I have and perhaps separate them by year or month. And I think I will insert a sheet of paper at the beginning of each with its date and some reference to the notebooks which precede and follow it as I find them. Once I complete that stage, I will compile a catalogue so we can see which volumes are missing.’

      She turned to see if her plan met with his approval, just in time to see his smile tucked away.

      ‘Did I say something amusing, Mr Sinclair?’

      ‘Not at all. You are the very model of good sense, Miss Walsh, and I commend your plan of attack. Mallory would approve. Pen and paper you shall have.’

      ‘What shall I do with these strips of paper?’ Ellie asked as she picked up one of the notebook with two notes dangling like pennants from between the pages.

      ‘Leave them. No, in fact, if you find anything, bring it to me.’

      * * *

      ‘Oh, look!’

      Chase looked. It was the third time that expletive had burst from Miss Walsh’s lips in as many hours, accompanied by a look of delight that was beginning to grate on his nerves. Not that it was not a charming sight—her mouth softening into her rare smile and her eyes widened and lit with joy, turning them from mere brown to warm honey flaked with dancing sparks of gold and the tiny glimmer of green around the iris.

      For the third time Chase found his attention wholly captured by her excitement. This time he tried for dismissiveness.

      ‘What have you found tucked inside his notebooks now? Another mouldering pressed daisy? An ancient Egyptian shopping list, perhaps? For ten yards of mummy wrappings and a sheave of papyrus?’

      ‘No. This was under the notebooks and it looks quite old.’ She approached the desk, holding a small leather-bound book with the gentleness of a lepidopterist balancing a rare butterfly on her palm. He took it just as carefully, memories flooding back.

      ‘You are right; it is very old. It is a book of hours given to my cousin by a friend of his, Fanous, an abbot at a Coptic monastery near his house in Qetara.’

      ‘It is exquisite.’

      It was indeed exquisite. A monk had probably toiled for months over the detailed illustrations and squiggly Coptic letters. The picture was of a man and a woman in medieval garb standing hand-fasted and heads bowed, either in joint prayer or in mutual embarrassment. He could almost feel the tension between them and he breathed in, surprised at his unusually sentimental interpretation of the image.

      ‘It is a wedding, I think,’ she said, her voice low and serious. ‘Look here in the corner, that is the priest and those tables might signify a wedding feast. Those look like greenish pumpkins.’

      ‘Either that or rotund babes. Those two clearly look as if they have anticipated their wedding vows.’

      Her mouth quirked almost into a smile and she tucked a strand of light-brown hair behind her ear as she leaned over him to turn the page.

      Unlike Dru and Fen she didn’t dress or curl her hair, just dragged it back into a mercilessly regimented bun that did nothing to enliven her looks. But the deeper she delved into the notebooks, the more she unravelled. Her bun was slowly loosening its hold and though she kept tucking the escaping strands of hair behind her ears, they rarely stayed there, adding character and life to her face.

      ‘See? These are their children, helping with the harvest.’ Her voice was low and warm, lost in the imaginary world she concocted from the colourful illustrations. This is probably how she saw her little world with Henry—a safe, bucolic haven surrounded by gambolling lambs and sandy-haired babes or honey-eyed little girls with determined brows and far too much intelligence for comfort. Reality, as he knew only too well, was unlikely to be as pleasant.

      She turned another page and caught a slip of paper before it fluttered to the ground. It was covered in Huxley’s scrawl and before he could take it she read it aloud, a frown in her voice.

      ‘“Fanous as Jephteh? Who else knew him?” Does that mean anything to you, Mr Sinclair? Or this list of letters? “J... M... P... S... C... E...at bull & pyramid”. How peculiar. It almost sounds like the name of an inn...you know, like the Horse and Plough, or the Lamb and Eagle.’

      Her eyes were alight with interest and Chase took the note, adding it to the growing stack he’d been collecting. Nothing so far appeared to shed any light on Huxley’s request. He was beginning to wonder if Huxley’s last letter was merely the sign of a decaying mind and odd fancies. The untidiness of the study and Folly appeared to support that possibility.

      Mallory should be able to clear up this conundrum, but according to Pruitt he left just two days before Huxley’s death to destinations unknown which was also peculiar, to say the least. Not that he suspected Mallory of anything improper. Huxley had taken him on as secretary when he was still a young man and he was as straight as an arrow, but it was still strange he’d disappeared so СКАЧАТЬ