Lady in Waiting by Marie Tremayne

Author:Marie Tremayne
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

William escaped the happy gathering belowstairs and headed outside in the dark, stripping off his jacket as he walked. The air was cool and clean and refreshing. He inhaled deeply and attempted to clear his mind of thoughts of Helen, twirling merrily in the arms of other men.

He glowered at the landscape, now blanketed by night. It was true he had panicked at Stella’s suggestion of a dance with Helen—perhaps he could have handled that better. But the contrition he had initially felt upon rejecting her had been extinguished somewhere around her third dance partner, and it had taken every ounce of restraint he possessed to keep from throttling any man near her after the sixth.

He tossed his jacket over a wrought iron chair and strode around the garden. He needed to walk off this frustration. How strange that a housemaid could bring him to such a state of emotional upheaval. While the reality of it was unsettling, he couldn’t deny her pull. He’d given in to it earlier that same day, even seeking her out on the way back from his room. William couldn’t regret it, foolish as it was. He’d risk being discovered a thousand times over if it would mean holding her once more, or seeing the way her eyes softened when they spoke.

He imagined part of the appeal was the distraction she provided from the worry and sadness that had become a pervasive presence in his life. There had been countless days since the accident where the only motivation for him to even open his eyes, let alone get out of bed, was his sense of duty to his family. The need for him to carry on, no matter the cost. After all, they had already paid the ultimate price—

Christ.

Lowering down to sit on the stone wall that circled the rear garden, he worked to reign in his emotions before they got out of hand. William could recognize that this was not simply a matter of battling against his desire for Helen. Somehow, the emotional scars he’d suffered had become entangled with his feelings for her.

Standing, he scooped up his jacket from atop its iron perch. Then with a growl of anger, he hooked his fingers around the cold metal and hurled the chair across the garden, sending it to clatter noisily across the ground. The cacophony was unseemly and out of place in the chilly quiet, but incredibly satisfying. If only it were that easy to rid himself of the memories that had been burned into his brain, the guilt of surviving when no one else had, the need to deny himself the thing he wanted most . . .

With an irritated sigh, he walked back towards the house, scooping up his jacket on the way. He had come outside to sort through the tangle of his thoughts, yet only succeeded in twisting them further. Grabbing the door to the service entrance, he crept into the dimly lit kitchen, feeling like an intruder in his own home.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.