Christmas Betrothals. Sophia James

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СКАЧАТЬ the white-lace linen cloth beneath it. How easy it was to be tipped from this place to that one. His wife. Dead!

      Her imaginings in a bed bathed in moonlight took on a less savoury feel and she pushed down disappointment.

      No man had ever swept her off her feet in all the seven years she had been out and to imagine that this one had even the propensity to do so suddenly seemed silly. Of course a man who looked like this American would not be a fit companion for her with his raw and rough manner and his dangerous eyes. The promise she had made her father less than an hour ago surfaced and she shook away the ridiculous yearnings.

      Betrothed by Christmas! Ah well, she thought as she guided the conversation to a more general one, if worst came to the worst, John Wilcox-Rice was at least biddable and she was past twenty-five.

      She met John at a party that evening in Belgrave Square and she knew that she was in trouble as soon as she saw his face. He looked excited and nervous at the same time, his smile both protective and concerned. When he took her fingers in his own she was glad for her gloves and glad too for the ornamental shrubbery placed beside the orchestra. It gave her a chance to escape the prying eyes of others while she tried to explain it all to him.

      When the cornet, violin and cello proved too much to speak over she pulled him out on to the balcony a little further away from the room, where the light was dimmer, the shadow of the shrubs throwing a kinder glow on both their faces.

      ‘You had my message from your father, then, about my interest—’ he began, but she allowed him no further discourse.

      ‘I certainly did and I thank you for the compliment, but I do not think we could possibly—’

      ‘Your father thinks differently,’ he returned, and a sneaking suspicion started to well in Lillian’s breast.

      ‘You have seen my father today?’ she began, stopping as he nodded.

      ‘Indeed I have and he was at pains to tell me you had agreed to at least consider my proposal.’

      ‘But I do not hold the sort of feelings for you that you would want, and there would be no guarantee that I ever could.’

      ‘I know.’ He took her hand again, this time peeling back the fine silk of her right glove, and pressing his lips to her wrist. Without meaning to she dragged her hand away, wiping it on the generous fabric of her skirt and thinking that this meeting place might not have been the wisest one after all.

      ‘I just want you to at least try. I want the chance to make you happy and I think that we would rub along together rather nicely.’

      ‘Well,’ she returned briskly, ‘I certainly value your friendship and I would indeed be very loath to lose it, but as for the rest….’

      He bowed before her. ‘I understand and I am ready to give you more time to ponder over it, Lillian, for as like-minded people of a similar birth I am convinced such a union would benefit us both.’

      She nodded and watched as he clicked his heels together and took his leave, a tall, thin man who was passably good looking and infinitely suitable. A husband she could indeed grow old with in a fairly satisfying relationship.

      Sighing, she made her way to the edge of the balcony, the same moon as the night before mocking her in her movements, remembering.

      ‘Stop it!’ she admonished herself out loud.

      ‘Stop what?’ Another voice answered and the American walked out from the shrubs behind her, the red tip of a cheroot the only thing standing out from the black of his silhouette.

      ‘How long have you been there?’

      ‘Long enough.’

      ‘A gentleman would have walked away.’

      He pointedly looked across the balustrade. ‘The fifteen-foot drop is somewhat of a deterrent.’

      ‘Or stayed quiet until I had left.’ The beat of her heart was worrying, erratic, hard. ‘Why, most Englishmen would be mortified to find themselves in this situation …’ She didn’t finish, owing to a loud laugh that rang rich in the night air.

      ‘Mortified?’ he repeated. ‘It has been a long while since I last felt that.’ His accent was measured tonight and at times barely heard, a different voice from the one he had affected at the Lenningtons’ with its broad Virginian drawl. She was glad she could not catch his eyes, still shaded by the greenery, though in the position she stood she knew her own to be well on show.

      Perhaps he had orchestrated it so? The gold band on the ring finger of his left hand jolted her. His marriage finger! She tried not to let him see where she looked.

      ‘We have not even been introduced, sir. None of this can be in any way proper. You must repair inside this instant.’

      Still he did not move, the dimple that Anne Weatherby had spoken of dancing in his cheek.

      ‘I am Lucas Clairmont from Richmond in Virginia,’ he said finally. ‘And you are Miss Davenport, a woman of manners and good taste, though I wonder at the wisdom of Wilcox-Rice as a groom?’

      ‘He is not that. You just heard me tell him so.’

      ‘He and your father seem to believe otherwise.’ Now he walked straight into the light and the golden eyes that had haunted her dreams made her pause. She swallowed heavily and held her hands hard against her thighs to stop them from shaking, though when he picked a slender stem from a pyracanthus bush behind him and handed it to her she leant forwards to take it.

      ‘Thank you.’ She could think of nothing else at all to say. The thorn on the stem pricked the base of her thumb.

      ‘I am glad I have this chance to apologise for frightening you yesterday at the Lenningtons’.’

      ‘Apology accepted.’ For the first time some of her tension dissipated with the simple reasoning that a criminal mind would not run to seeking any sort of amnesty. ‘I realise that my cousin can be rather trying at times.’

      His teeth were white against the brown of his face and Lillian was jolted back to reality as his eyes darkened and she saw for a moment a man she barely recognised.

      A dangerous man. A man who would not be moulded or conditioned by the society in which he found himself.

      So unlike her. She stepped back, afraid now of a thing that she had no name for, and wondered what her cousin had done to cause such enmity.

      ‘Have no fear, Miss Davenport. I would not kill him because he’s not worth being hanged at Newgate for.’

      Kill him? My God. To even think that he might consider it and then qualify any lack of action with a personal consequence.

      I would if I could get away with it.

      John Wilcox-Rice’s gentle mediocrity began to look far more appealing until Luc Clairmont reached out for her hand and took it in his own. The shock of contact left her mute, but against her will she was drawn to him.

      Against her will? She could not even say that!

      His finger traced the lines on СКАЧАТЬ