A Matchmaker for a Marquess by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Regency
Publisher: Christi Caldwell
Published: 2019-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

After three rounds of blind man’s bluff, himself once in the role of blind man, Barry managed to make his escape.

His footfalls echoed along the darkened corridors, softly marking the path he’d taken.

Generally, he’d not found the games at his mother’s parties agonizing. Had even enjoyed them, an admission he’d never make to a soul and would take to his grave.

Only, this time, this night, he’d found himself restless, eager to quit the rooms and the festivities and games. There’d only ever been one place that brought him a sense of calm. A place he’d stumbled upon during discourse between his father and mother, the duke lamenting his son’s peculiar interests. After that, Barry had stolen away only when the world wasn’t looking.

As Barry reached the double doors leading to the duchess’s prized gardens, however, he did not delude himself into believing his desire to escape had anything to do with his unnatural fascination with botany or the tedium of the evening’s festivities.

Rather, he’d retired for the evening because he’d been consumed with thoughts of one person. The one guest who’d not been present.

Or rather, in this case, the one woman.

The very woman who was here even now.

Barry remained frozen, his fingers on the door handle.

With her back to him, Meredith sat on a small, wrought-iron bench that, despite the rust that had begun to chip at the once-neat white paint, retained a place in the duchess’s gardens. The tips of her toes brushed the first row of his mother’s prized tulips.

She would be here.

There was an odd sense of rightness to her presence—not just in this place, but at Berkshire Manor—a rightness that went back to Meredith’s connection with Barry’s family. She’d been gone entirely too long. Slowly depressing the handle, Barry opened the door and slipped outside. She gave no indication she’d heard him.

With her unaware of his presence, Barry drank in the sight of her. The moon cast a soft, natural light around her, wreathing her head with a pale halo that played off her dark tresses. Those dark strands stood in stark contrast to her cream-white skin, which had been satiny soft to his touch. His fingers curled reflexively around the handle as the memory of Meredith in his arms, and the sudden need to again know her in that way, took hold.

You pathetic wretch. What manner of rogue are you? Lusting after Meredith Durant… a woman who’d been raised alongside him like another sister. His father’s late friend’s only child.

There were a thousand and one reasons to quit his silent, appreciative study of her. So why did the task prove so bloody difficult? What was it about this woman that compelled him?

Somewhere in the distance, a night heron called, cutting into the disquiet wrought over his inexplicable fascination. The bird’s muted cries were met with the immediate chitters of its mate.

Quietly, Barry pushed the door closed behind him. “Miss Durant. How very unexpected seeing you here,” he said quietly. And it was. The gardens had never been a place he’d found her as a girl.

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