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

her, stroking her, kissing every white inch of her. What did two days matter? She would be his wife.

He stepped toward the barn, only to stop dead in his tracks. He saw a movement from the corner of his eyes. He turned and saw the Comte de Trécassis striding toward the barn, his natty cloak billowing out behind him.

A deep foreboding, something he could not explain, swept over him. The earl did not call out to the comte. He didn’t move forward to greet him.

Instead he remained firmly planted where he was, his eyes fixed on the elegant young man whom he hadn’t hated until this moment, only despised because he didn’t trust him.

The comte paused a moment before the barn door, glanced quickly around him, tugged at the handle, and as Arabella had done, disappeared into the dim interior.

In a swift military motion the earl clapped his hand to his side where his deadly sword had hung for so many years. His hand balled into a fist at finding nothing more deadly than his pocket. He drew a deep breath and remained standing stiffly, his eyes never leaving the barn door. Arabella was in the barn. The comte had gone into the barn.

No, he wouldn’t believe what he had seen. There was an explanation. One that would make him laugh at himself. But even as he sought for any explanation at all, he felt a black, numbing misery building in his belly. He felt he was losing a part of himself, a precious part, one not yet fully understood or explored. But no, that didn’t have to be true.

Time passed, but he had no sense of it. From the meadow just beyond the farmyard came the insistent mooing of cows. The sun was fast fading, bathing the barn in gentle golden rays of dusk. The day was coming to a close much the same as any other day, yet he felt no part of it.

Even as his eyes probed the barn door, it opened and the comte quickly emerged. Again he looked about him with the air of one who does not wish to be discovered. In a gesture that left the earl shuddering with black rage, the comte swiftly adjusted the buttons of his breeches, brushed lingering straws from his legs and cloak, and strode with a swaggering gait back to Evesham Abbey.

Still the earl did not move, his eyes fastened to the closed barn door.

He had not long to wait, for just as the last light of day flickered into darkness, the door opened, and Arabella, her hair disheveled and tumbling wildly about her shoulders, ventured out, stood for a moment executing a languorous stretch, then turned toward the abbey, humming softly to herself. Every few steps she leaned over and picked bits of straw from her gown.

He saw her wave gaily to the half-dozen farm boys who were busily herding the cows toward the barn for their evening milking.

A gruesome kaleidoscope of images whirled through the earl’s mind. He saw clearly the first man he had killed in battle—a young French soldier, a bullet from the earl’s gun spreading deadly crimson across his bright coat. He saw the leathery, grimacing face of an old sergeant, run through with his sword, the astonishment of imminent death written in his eyes.

He wanted to retch now, as he had then.

The earl had no romantic illusions about killing; he had learned that life was too precious, too fragile a thing to be dispatched in the heat of passion.

He turned and walked back to his new home. His shoulders remained squared. His stride was steady, his expression controlled. But his eyes were empty.

“It is a joyous and sacred ceremony that brings us together today. In the presence of our Lord, we come to join two of his children, his lordship, Justin Morley Deverill, tenth Baron Lathe, ninth Viscount Silverbridge, seventh Earl of Strafford and Lady Arabella Elaine Deverill, daughter of the late esteemed Earl of Strafford, in the holiest of earthly bonds.” He saw the comte straightening his trousers when he’d come out of the barn.

But the day before she’d kissed him, spoken so boldly to him, pressing herself against him. Spoken so boldly, as if she knew exactly what a man did with a woman. Jesus, he couldn’t bear it.

Arabella gazed up at the earl’s finely chiseled profile. She silently willed him to look at her, but he did not, his gray eyes remaining fastened intently upon the vicar’s face. He had seemed rather withdrawn, even cold toward her the previous evening, and now she suppressed a grin, deciding that either he was nervous about this whole marriage business, or he had been afraid to get close to her because he would want to seduce her. She wouldn’t have minded another kiss or two. She wouldn’t have minded him telling her again how he wanted to feel her breasts against him. She shivered at that memory. She knew that tonight she would get much more. Exactly what that much more was, she wasn’t exactly certain, but she was eager to find out.

“If there is any man present in this chamber who can state objection to the joining of this man and woman, let him rise now and speak.” She’d met the comte in the barn and let him take her. She had coldly and freely betrayed him. He had wanted to kill both of them, but he hadn’t.

He knew what was at stake.

She’d had straw in her hair, her gown was askew, and she was whistling.

She had obviously enjoyed herself thoroughly. He’d wanted to kill both of them. But just that day she had been so free with him, so giving. She’d wanted him, hadn’t she?

Lady Ann felt a brief catch in her throat and swallowed quickly. She had always turned up her nose at mothers who wept with abandon at their daughters’ weddings, usually after they had done everything in their power to bring the wedding about, including