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

a moment of uncertainty about herself. Because she could not bear to feel the weaker, her anger twisted and knotted inside her. She clutched the riding crop in her hand so tightly that a stab of pain shot up her fingers.

No, she wouldn’t let him have control. She forced herself to loosen her grip on the riding crop. “Get off my land,” she said, her voice as autocratic as her father’s had been when military men had come to Evesham Abbey to speak to him on war matters.

“Your land? Though you have the manners and tongue of an ill-bred, spoiled young man, you surely cannot mean to lay claim to the earl’s title? No, you cannot do that.”

He unwittingly struck at the festering wound deep within her, laying it open, raw and ugly. She was filled with the despair of failure, with the old hatred of herself for not being born a boy, her father’s heir, her father’s pride. A curse lay leaden on her tongue. She whipped back her head, drew upon a reserve of strength unique to herself, and said with dignity that took him off his guard, for it sat strangely upon the shoulders of one so young, “I suppose it is now my mother’s land.

Unfortunately, my father did not have a son, as I said earlier, nor did his younger brother, Thomas. It grieves me as it must have grieved him, for his title must become extinct. My father was not blessed in the sex of his offspring.”

Admirable, he thought. Dear God, she was beautiful, now more beautiful than she had been five minutes before. Aloud he said easily, “Don’t reproach yourself for being a woman. Surely you cannot imagine that the fault somehow lies within you. Your father was more proud of you than he would have been of a dozen sons.” He felt a stirring of compassion for her, for the leap of hope in her gray eyes, eyes so much like his. He didn’t like it.

Lady Arabella, daughter of the late Earl of Strafford was back again, her voice filled with contempt. “You could hardly know what my father felt.

He would not have recognized you. If you ever saw him, it was only at a distance. If he did sire you, he would have never allowed you to come near Evesham Abbey, near his wife, near me, his daughter. My father was honorable. He was faithful to his wife. He held honor dear.” He wanted to tell her that what she’d said hadn’t made a lot of sense, but he said only, “As you will.”

Arabella stiffened rigid as an oak sapling. He was dismissing her? She sensed in him a habit of command, the easy use of authority, the confidence of a man used to being obeyed, but surely that couldn’t be right. He was probably exactly what he looked like—a pirate and a rogue, a man who lived by his wits, a man who cared little for anyone, in short, her father’s bastard.

She said calmly, “I bid you good-bye. I only hope that your sense of honor will prohibit your presence at Evesham Abbey. It would cause my mother great pain were you to intrude upon her grief. If you have any decency at all, you will stay away.” Would he think she was begging him?

God, surely not. She shouted, “Stay away! I order you to stay away from my home!”

She turned from him abruptly and strode with the long strides of a man away from him. She paused, and turned back to him. “As a bastard, you should speak to my father’s solicitor. Perhaps he left something for you, a token, perhaps. Had I been he, I wouldn’t have left you anything.” She turned on her heel again and walked quickly away. She tasted victory; she had taken control from him at the end. She had that, at least.

He stood in thoughtful silence, staring after her. “No,” he said quietly, lightly tapping his gloves against his open hand, “my presence won’t cause your mother pain. But you will suffer, Lady Arabella. You are perhaps more arrogant than your father, though that is a very close call.

You are damnably proud, but still, I am sorry for it.” There was only silence save for the gentle rustling of the thin-armed water reeds.

Lady Ann sat between her daughter and Elsbeth, her stepdaughter, her shoulders hunched slightly forward and her ivory hands clasped tightly in her lap. The heavy black veils hung about her face, obscuring the smooth plaits of blond hair and weighing down her back so that she could no longer sit board-straight. She was hot and wished only that it were evening so she could be alone in the curtain-drawn coolness of her bedchamber, out of the wretched black clothing that shrouded her from head to toe.

George Brammersley, solicitor to her late husband, had arrived only yesterday in one of the earl’s crested carriages; now he arranged himself with his usual show of dignity behind the great oak library desk. Lady Ann watched as he dallied, first polishing the small circles of his glasses, then settling them with practiced ease on the bridge of his vein-lined hawk nose. He slowly spread a sheaf of papers before him on the top of the desk, arranging them first one way and then another. His rheumy old eyes studiously avoided the three women. Lady Ann longed for a brush to smooth down the unruly wisps of gray frazzled hair that stood about his scalp at odd angles. He was a very old friend of her late husband’s. She had always felt sorry for him. Now, she wished she could spare him, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to.

She could feel a mounting intensity in Arabella’s body, now too thin since she had not eaten much of anything since they had been informed of her father’s death. Lady Ann knew that Arabella wouldn’t hold herself in check much longer. She knew, too, that her