Beyond Seduction by Stephanie Laurens

Author:Stephanie Laurens [Laurens, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-12-03T09:47:05+00:00

234 Stephanie

Laurens

“Oh, it is.” With a smiling nod to the lacemaker, Madeline turned to move on.

With quick nods to the woman, the three girls went with her.

“Is it nearly lunchtime?” Jane stretched up on her toes, bobbing to look past the milling heads to the clock set in the wall above the stable arch.

Madeline checked. “No, not just yet, but if we head that way, by the time we reach the steps it should be time to go in.”

The girls happily ranged around her, Belinda on one side, Jane on the other, with Annabel beyond.

Belinda drew breath, rather portentously. As Madeline glanced her way, she said, “About our come-outs . . .” When she went no further, Madeline prompted, “What about them?”

“Well, you see”—Belinda frowned, twisting her fingers—“given what happened to Melissa and Katherine, we wondered . . . well”—she glanced at Madeline—“is it usual for a just-married lady to send her husband’s sisters off that way? Just not want to have them around?” Belinda’s hazel eyes searched Madeline’s face. “We thought you might know.”

Madeline studied those hazel eyes, very like Gervase’s, then glanced at Annabel, met her blue eyes, then dropped her gaze to Jane’s eyes, recalling what Gervase had earlier told her. In that instant, she more fully appreciated what had been behind the girls’ disruptive actions.

Looking up, she drew in a slow breath, then glanced at Belinda. “I honestly don’t think you have anything to worry about. Your brother would never send you away—and if you imagine any lady he married might see you as rivals for his affection . . . quite aside from that being unlikely in any lady he would choose to wed, any lady who attempted to Beyond

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get between him and you three would quickly find she’d misjudged.”

They continued to tack slowly through the crowd. When Belinda frowned, clearly unconvinced, Madeline smiled wryly and added, “Your brother is a very strong man, not just in a physical sense but in all ways. No lady I’ve ever met would be strong enough to bend him to her purpose if that purpose was one he was set against.”

“No lady?” Jane queried. When Madeline looked down at her, she opened her eyes wide. “Not even you?” Madeline laughed and laid a hand on Jane’s shoulder.

“Not even me.” Looking across the heads to the steps, she added absentmindedly, “Not that I’d wish to do anything so silly as send you three away.”

Glancing back at Belinda, she saw a small swift smile cross her face.

“No.” Belinda looked down as they neared the steps.

“But that’s you—we were worried about someone else. You know us, so you’re different. Other ladies might not react to us in the same way.”

Smiling fondly, Madeline lifted her other hand to Belinda’s shoulder and squeezed lightly, reassuringly. “Any lady your brother chooses will think the same. Now hush, for there he is.”

Gervase was standing at the top of the steps. He’d seen them approaching. He scanned his sisters’ features, then his eyes narrowed and fixed on Belinda’s face.

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