Lord Laughraine's Summer Promise by Elizabeth Beacon

Author:Elizabeth Beacon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘Lady Laughraine, what a pleasure it is to see you again,’ Mr Winterley exclaimed the instant Callie stepped inside the small drawing room after a hasty wash and changing into yet another plain muslin gown Biddy had managed to iron creditably under Mrs Craddock’s patient instruction.

‘It would certainly be one for Lady Laughraine’s husband if he could see past the prattling rogue standing between him and his lady right now,’ Gideon said grumpily, and Callie’s fickle heart raced again at the very sound of him. At least jealousy had jolted him out of his chilly lawyer’s persona and made him sound like a husband again, so she smiled at the rogue graciously because that certainly felt like a favour.

‘Good evening, my lord, Gideon and it is Mr Winterley, isn’t it?’

‘A very good evening to you, my dear, this old place seems brighter now you’re back here with this scapegrace nephew of mine at last,’ Lord Laughraine greeted her, and she was touched by his attempts to fit her into his household as his heir’s wife, instead of a scandal waiting to happen. ‘You appear to be blooming again after your rest, despite my staff and this restless nephew of mine doing their best to wear you to a frazzle. I told them to leave you to settle in at your own pace, but I might as well have saved my breath.’

‘Thank you anyway, my lord, you are very kind,’ she said with a smile for her secret grandfather she couldn’t make stiff or chilly in the face of his genuine welcome.

He seemed happy to let her set the pace of their relationship, or maybe he didn’t want to acknowledge her and rake up the past and who could blame him? Except without the facts of her birth coming out, Gideon’s claim to Raigne was weak. She wished the whole business was pared down to a husband and wife finding out if they could live as that, but years of loneliness had taught her to take life as it was rather than longing for an elusive ideal.

‘Lord Laughraine might be, but I’m not,’ Mr Winterley interrupted her thoughts with an extravagant bow she suspected was meant to infuriate Gideon. ‘You look more enchanting tonight than you did this morning, Lady Laughraine.’

‘And I suspect you of being a flatterer, Mr Winterley,’ she said coolly.

‘Would that I was, my lady, but since you’re wed to this unworthy and secretive fellow, I must learn to live with the sad fact he found you first,’ he said with a wicked smile she ought to distrust.

‘Are these what are commonly called town manners, Mr Winterley?’ she asked with a wry smile, because it was heady to be lied to extravagantly by such a dashing gentleman.

‘No, my lady, a sign I have good eyesight and the sense to know a diamond of the first water when I see one.’

‘Speaking as the man who recognised my wife’s unique qualities many years before you set eyes on her, Winterley, I’ll thank you to stop flirting with my lady.

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