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

Sir Ralph stiffened, frowning at the earl’s daughter. What was she about?

What was all this nonsense? Did not her mother, this lovely fragile lady, have any control over her?

Lady Ann said, her voice far too gentle for Sir Ralph’s liking, “My dear Arabella, surely it would be best if Sir Ralph did contact your father’s solicitor. After all, there is so very much for us to do already.”

“No, Mother.” Arabella turned cold gray eyes to Sir Ralph’s flushed face.

The earl’s eyes, there was no doubt about that. And that coldness of hers, just like the late earl’s. Yes, this damned impertinent girl probably also had her late father’s arrogance, not that Sir Ralph would ever say that the late earl did not deserve every whit of arrogance he chose to exhibit.

“We appreciate your kindness, Sir Ralph, but it is for us—my mother and me—to make whatever arrangements are now necessary. Please extend our gratitude to the Prince Regent. His words would touch the coldest of hearts.”

Now, what did that mean? Sir Ralph did not appreciate irony. It annoyed him. He disliked having to decipher it, having to puzzle over it only to discover that no irony at all had ever been intended. But what had come to him loud and quite clear was that the damned girl was dismissing him.

Him! To give himself time so he wouldn’t box the girl’s ears, Sir Ralph slowly pulled off his spectacles and raised his ample bulk equally as slowly from the chair.

Arabella rose also, and to Sir Ralph’s chagrin, her cold gray eyes were on a level with his. She had winter eyes, he thought, as cold and harsh as her father’s. He wondered if they ever warmed, as he had once seen her father’s warm when he had touched a very lovely young courtesan’s exquisite white shoulder. He shouldn’t remember something like that, particularly in the widow’s presence. He would forget it, now.

The daughter extended a slender hand. Her voice was clipped, yet even the most ardent of sticklers would have found no fault with her. “Thank you, Sir Ralph. As you can see, the news has been quite a shock to my mother.

If you will forgive us, I really must see to her needs now. I will have Russell show you out.”

He found himself reacting to her just as he would have to her father. He moved quickly. He spoke in his most conciliatory voice. “Yes, yes, of course. My dear Lady Ann, if there is anything I can do, anything to relieve you of the burdens that now afflict you, do not hesitate to call upon me. I will be here instantly to assist you.” And he was thinking, just as long as this bitch of a daughter isn’t with you. He preferred his women gentle, soft-spoken, and obedient. Like Lady Ann. But then, he wondered, why had the earl kept a mistress in London, a mistress in Brussels, and frequented brothels in Portugal, from all Sir Ralph had heard. Ah, but a fragile creature like Lady Ann surely wouldn’t be expected to service such a demanding man, as the late earl surely was. As for the daughter, he would admit that she was beautiful, ah, but so cold, so forthright, so unconciliatory.

The countess had averted her face and did not rise. Only a slight nodding of her fair head acknowledged his words. By all that was holy, she was exquisite. He really didn’t want to leave her, but he had no choice, not with that dragon of a daughter looking at him as if she’d like to chop him into small pieces with a knife she doubtless carried at her waist.

“Good-bye, Sir Ralph,” Arabella said, her voice as wintry as her father’s eyes.

Again, he thought regretfully that he would have liked to clasp the small trembling hands of the countess in his own, to assure her that he would protect her, comfort her, share her grief, not that the late Earl of Strafford had afforded him all that attention, the earl having paid very little attention to anyone he did not deem worthy of killing the French.

He was not, however, in a position to carry out his wishes. He looked unwillingly away from the beautiful countess into the set, unsmiling face of the late earl’s daughter.

As the parlor door closed with a snap behind him, he was again struck with the thought that the earl’s daughter was molded in his very image.

Their physical likeness was striking—the same ink-black hair and dark arched brows set above haughty, arrogant gray eyes. But it was not simply their physical similarities. How very alike in temperament they were.

Proud, autocratic, and most damnably capable. Even though Sir Ralph was displeased at being dismissed by an eighteen-year-old girl, he felt it rather a pity that the girl could not have been born a boy. From what he had just witnessed, she could have most ably filled her father’s position.

The Countess of Strafford raised wide blue eyes to her daughter’s fine-featured face. “Really, my dearest, were you not a bit harsh with poor Sir Ralph? You must know he meant well. He was trying to spare both of us unnecessary pain.”

“My father need not be dead now,” Arabella said in a cold flat voice.

“Such a stupid waste. Stupid, stupid war to appease the ridiculous greed of stupid men. Dear God, could there be anything more unjust?” She flung away her mother’s open arms and pounded her fists against the paneled wall.

My poor foolish child. You will not let me comfort you, for you are too much like him. You grieve for a man whose very existence made mine an endless misery. Is there no part of me in you? Poor Arabella, to shed tears is not to be despicable and weak.

“Arabella, where are you going?” The countess rose quickly and hurried after her daughter.

“To see Brammersley, father’s solicitor. Surely you know who he is, Mother. He has tried to flirt