Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter

Author:Catherine Coulter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9780451163622
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1980-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

“You have far too lovely a head for nonsensical games, Miss Talgarth,” the earl said as he helped her to rise and drew her arm through his.

“I had believed you a man of truth, my lord,” Suzanne said. “Come, admit it, you could most willingly have wrung my neck when I trumped your winning spade in the third game.”

“Very well, I will admit it. Truth is sometimes the very devil, isn’t it, Miss Talgarth?”

“His lordship finds the lovely Miss Talgarth most amusing, is it not so, cousin?”

Arabella raised gray eyes to the comte’s too-handsome face and said, “I daresay, monsieur, but then again, I myself find Suzanne most amusing.

She enlivens any conversation, brightens any party.” When, amid wraps and bonnets, Lady Talgarth and Miss Talgarth took their leave, Arabella quickly excused herself, not meeting the earl’s eyes, and hurried up the stairs. She locked the door to the earl’s bedchamber, and heaved a sigh of relief, only to gasp with surprise as the door to the adjoining dressing room slowly opened. She stood frozen in the middle of the room, as the earl strode toward her.

He saw her eyes fly to the small nightstand, guessed her pistol lay in the drawer, and drew to a halt. He watched her closely as her hands balled into fists and her face paled in the dim candlelight. A picture of Arabella, dancing toward him in her nightgown, smiling confidently and unafraid, darted through his mind. Their wedding night seemed an eternity ago.

He said to her in an even voice, “You will not need your gun tonight, Arabella. I merely came to wish you a good night. You were an excellent hostess. I was pleased. I believe the evening was successful.”

“Thank you. I agree,” she said, nothing more. She stood there unmoving until he had strode from the bedchamber and into the adjoining room, closing the door behind him.

Rain slashed against the windows and cascaded in thick sheets onto the rows of rosebushes, flattening them against the outside wall of the library. Arabella sighed in frustration at her enforced inactivity and hurriedly scanned the dark-paneled shelves for a suitable book to while away the afternoon hours. How very strange it was that she, the Earl of Strafford’s favorite daughter should be roaming furtively about the abbey, purposely avoiding nearly all of its occupants. Even Dr. Branyon, who was expected later in the afternoon for tea, had joined the ranks of those whose penetrating stares made her feel like a guilty intruder in her own home.

“Oh, damn, how absurd it is.” She grabbed the first colorfully bound book that caught her eye. Once in the earl’s bedchamber she realized she had selected a book of plays by the French writer Mirabeau. As her French was as deplorable as her efforts at the pianoforte, deciphering the lines word by word was about as pleasurable as having a splinter in her finger.

After a while she looked up from her shadowed corner and rubbed her eyes.

She was struck again by her desire to be alone, be hidden away from everyone.

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