Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

turned to face him. “I think you’re right, Ann. Though I can easily picture some ferocious fights between them, they are perhaps better suited than most. Arabella needs a mate of great strength, else she would render the unfortunate’s life miserable. As for Justin, I vow that, given an obliging, meek little spouse, he would become a household tyrant in very short order.” She’d rather hoped he would say something else. Well, he was right about Arabella and the new earl. She just prayed the two of them would see things in the same light. She wanted to sigh, but couldn’t. She said lightly instead, “How very tidily you wrap up all my concerns.” Had she really been concerned? She didn’t think so, but she’d had to say something. She gaily plucked a daffodil from her bunch and with a mock curtsy pulled its stem through a buttonhole in his coat.

“And now I’m a dapper dog as well.” He smiled tenderly down at her upturned face.

Lady Ann gulped. That look of his surely must be intended for something he was thinking. It couldn’t be intended for her. It was too tender a look, too intimate, too close. Suddenly, she gave a guilty start. “Oh goodness, I forgot about Elsbeth. She will think I’ve given her not a thought, poor child. And I have, just not for the past fifteen minutes or so. And that is all your fault, sir. Come, let’s find her. It is nearly teatime.” She didn’t care a whit about tea or anything else, but she knew her duty, at least most of the time. Curse it.

He nodded, but then, without warning, he pulled up short in his tracks and gave a shout of laughter.

“Whatever is that for?”

“It just occurred to me, my dear Ann, that you will soon be the Dowager Countess of Strafford. You, a dowager. It boggles the imagination. You look like Arabella’s sister, not her mother. Oh, how you’re going to be teased and twitted and given such very complacent looks. Some of the old bats will be delighted. They’ll doubtless try to convince themselves that you’ve gone all wrinkled and gray and gloat.”

“Well, I am becoming quite matronly. Soon I just might have a gray hair.

Goodness, do you suppose I’ll pull it out? Do you suppose that by the time I’m of truly advanced years, I’ll be bald?”

“You may tug and pull as you please. I promise now to buy you a number of wigs if you need one. Also, I will begin right now to assist you. Here is my arm to support you. When you can no longer walk without me, then I shall prescribe a cane.”

She had no idea that her blue eyes were dancing as wildly as the wicked new waltz from Germany, but he did. He was enchanted. Oh God, he was more than enchanted. He was King Arthur. He was Merlin. He was everything in the world that could be enchanted and entranced and charmed and so in love that he could barely bring himself to breathe.

All he could do was watch her mouth as she said, all gaiety and lightness, “A cane. What a lovely thought. If anyone offended me, I could crack him on the head.”

Elsbeth did not believe that Lady Ann had already lost interest in her.

Nor did she believe that Lady Ann had gotten herself into an accident.

Actually, she was not thinking about Lady Ann at all. Rather, she was staring off at nothing in particular, her small hand poised above her stitchery, her colorful creation for the moment forgotten. It was bluebells around a pond, or some such sort of water.

She was thinking about all the fun that awaited her in London. Balls, routs, even plays in Drury Lane. So much to do, so much to see. She had heard of the Pantheon Bazaar all of her life, where one could fine literally any color ribbon and myriad other gewgaws. And there was, of course, Almack’s, that most holy of inner sanctums, where young girls spent untold hours dancing with charming, dashing young men. Her ten thousand pounds would ensure her foothold in London society. With Lady Ann, the widow of a peer and military hero, she could not imagine any door being closed to her. So excited was she at the prospect that her natural shyness and hesitancy in mixing in polite society lessened considerably.

She frowned, thinking suddenly of Josette. How she wished that her old servant would cease with her dark mutterings against every Deverill in sight and out of sight. After all, had not her father proven his love for her? Such a vast sum he had bequeathed to her. Elsbeth sighed. Josette was just getting old. Her wits were becoming clouded, too. Just this morning, Josette had called her Magdalaine.

Quite clearly she had said, “Come closer to the window, Magdalaine. How can I mend this flounce with you fidgeting about so?” Elsbeth had chosen not to remind her faithful old servant that she was not her mother, Magdalaine. She had docilely moved to the window.

It was then that she had seen the earl and Arabella. “Oh, just look, Josette,” she said, pointing as she moved closer to the window, “there come Arabella and the earl. Look at their stallions, how fast they’re running.” Indeed, the two great plunging stallions were cannoning across the drive onto the front lawn. “They are racing! There, Arabella has won.

Oh my, just look how her horse is plunging and rearing. Oh, how exciting.” Elsbeth shivered. Horses seemed quite unpredictable to her; they were nasty, jittery beasts, and not to be trusted. She hated them, but she would never admit it to Arabella.

Elsbeth heard Arabella’s shout of victory and watcher her alight from her horse, unassisted. Ah, she was so graceful, her skirts whirling around her. Josette drew closer, narrowed her watery eyes against the glare of the morning sun, and muttered with heavy disapproval, “Just like her father she is,