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

to face even the most unpleasant things straight on, with no shying away. “You are obviously a bastard—my father’s bastard. You cannot be so blind as not to notice the great similarity between our features, and I am the very image of my father.” She averted her face, unwilling to let him see her pain.

Tears burned her eyes. Yes, she was the image of her father, but not the right sex. Poor father, he had not the good fortune to beget a son in wedlock. But he’d gotten a bastard son. She turned wintry eyes back to his face and said bleakly, “I wonder if there are others like you. If there are, I only pray that they do not all resemble him as closely as you do. I always wished for a brother, for now, you see, my father’s line will die out. I am only a female and thus not acceptable. I have never believed it fair.”

“Perhaps it isn’t fair, but it is the way things are. As for a bastard of your father’s so closely resembling him, it would seem unlikely to me.

But you appear to be in a better position to know of such matters than I.

What, however, does seem likely is that if the earl sired children out of wedlock, they would have the good sense not to show their faces here.” He spoke with calm matter-of-factness, sensing her hurt. He rose unhurriedly to his feet to face her. He didn’t want to frighten her. He didn’t want her to feel threatened by him. That would happen soon enough.

“But you are here.” She was forced to look up as she spoke. “Damn you to hell, you are even of his size. Dear God, how can you come here at such a time? Have you no sense of honor, no sense of decency? My father is dead and yet here you are, acting as if you belong here.”

“You question my honor. I wish you would not do that. I do have some, so it is said of me.”

She felt a terrible urge to slash his face with her riding crop. He stepped toward her, looming over her head, blocking the sun. Her nostrils flared and her eyes darkened, mirroring her violent intent.

“Don’t do it, my dear,” he said, his voice as quiet and gentle as a summer rain.

“I am not your dear,” she said, so angry with him, with herself, she backed away from him. Her eyes narrowed and she said with cold cruelty lacing her words, “You need not tell me your purpose for being here. I am a fool not to have guessed sooner. My father’s bastard, come for the reading of his will. You have no more honor than that croaking toad over there. Do you think to be acknowledged, to be given some of my father’s money?” She was shaking with anger, shaking with frustration, for he was the larger, larger than even her father, and she wasn’t a man and thus couldn’t beat him into the dirt. Ah, and she wanted to. She wanted to pound him. She wanted to grind him beneath her heel. She sensed his indifference to her as he leaned down, brushed twigs and grass blades from his breeches, and picked up his coat. She hated him for his indifference.

“Yes,” he said slowly, as he rose, “I am here for the reading of the earl’s will.”

“God, you are damnable, unspeakable!”

“What venom from such a lovely mouth,” he said mildly as he shrugged into his coat. “Tell me, gentle lady, has no man yet taken you in hand?

Perhaps taken that lovely throat between his hands and forced you to pay attention to his words? No, I can see that you have run wild, that you have been allowed to do just as you please with no regard to others and what they may be thinking or feeling.” He took a step toward her.

“Perhaps I could be convinced to bring you to some sort of obedience. You do want taming. Perhaps I could even bring myself to thrash you.” Joy filled her. He had threatened her. He was as vulgar and common as she had first believed. She said almost jovially, “Come here, you bastard, and let me show you what a lady can do.” She took a sudden step to her right, waving her hand at him, taunting him, motioning for him to come to her.

But he didn’t move. His left eyebrow shot up a good inch, making the arch more arrogant, just as her father’s eyebrows had done, particularly when he had spoken in that cold indifferent way to his wife, to Arabella’s mother. No, she wouldn’t think about that. Surely when her father had done that, her mother had done something to provoke it. Yes, certainly.

It had happened rarely. It had been nothing.

“If I am a bastard, then you must be the ill-begotten daughter of a fishmonger. As to my coming near to you, why, I can think of little else that would give me lesser pleasure. You think to strike me with the riding crop? I recommend that you think carefully before you raise that crop to me. I am larger than you and I am a man. I do caution you to exercise caution.”

“I have thought through everything very carefully. You are a coward.”

“You are very lucky that you are female,” he said finally, and then he laughed, fully and richly, and she saw that he had dimples, as deep as hers, in each cheek.

“Yes,” he said, looking at her up and down, insulting her with that male assessing look, and knowing it. “One would almost think that you wished me to wrest that riding crop from you and give you a sound thrashing. Are you one of those females who enjoy rough play?”

“You try it and I will see you in Hell.” It dawned on her with something of a shock that she no longer held the reins of control. She knew