Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase

Author:Loretta Chase [Chase, Loretta]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Romance, Historical, Adult, Humour, Childrens
ISBN: 9780425208885
Amazon: 0425208885
Barnesnoble: 0425208885
Goodreads: 132598
Published: 2006-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

THE SKY WAS LIGHTENING BY THE TIME BENE-dict and Mrs. Wingate had made the rounds of the likeliest inns in Reading. By this point, she was on the point of collapse, though she refused to admit it.

They stood near the ticket office of the Crown Inn, she watching every vehicle that came and went while quarreling with him about their next step.

"This grows ridiculous," he told her. "We have wasted valuable time taking the word of innkeepers and servants who are half asleep. It makes as much sense to wait in Reading for the Courser to make its return trip, and speak directly to the coachman."

"That will be hours," she said. 'The children might be halfway to Bristol by then."

"If you would only apply a little logic, you would see how very unlikely that is,"

Benedict said as patiently as he could. "They are two children with next to no money. They must rely on their wits and the kindness or gullibility of strangers.

Even your daughter, spawn of Satan that you believe her to be, cannot travel at any great rate unless she hires a post chaise. To afford it, she must take to highway robbery. She would then need to find, in a short space of time on a small piece of road, a victim willing to hand over an unusually heavy purse."

Mrs. Wingate regarded him through slitted blue eyes. "Have you any idea, Rathbourne, how utterly detestable you become when you adopt that tone of patient superiority?"

"The trouble is, you are tired, hungry, anxious, and afflicted with an aching hand,"

he said. "The trouble is, you had confidently expected a happy outcome only to have your hopes dashed. Consequently, you are too low-spirited at present to appreciate that I am perfect and therefore cannot be detestable."

She gazed at him for a moment, up and down, then up again. Then, "Did your wife ever throw things at you?" she said.

"No," he said, blinking, not merely because the question surprised him but because he was trying to picture Ada doing it and couldn't.

"Was she an aberration then, like Lord Lisle?" she said. "You did say all the Dalmays were emotionally extravagant. Yet she never threw anything at you."

"She never did," Benedict said. "We never quarreled. We were strangers, as I told you before."

"She could not have been as emotional as you claim," she said. "Perhaps she merely seemed so, compared to you. A mild show of feeling or a lack of perfect logic must seem extreme to a man who is so determinedly in control of everything."

"Once upon a time, I imagined I was in reasonable control of my life," he said.

"Now I have a missing nephew, a stupendous scandal looming like a great storm cloud on the horizon, and your

And the dreadful truth was, he was enjoying himself.

The dreadful truth was, he was relieved they hadn't found the children yet.

It was madness to feel this way. Everything Benedict cared most about was at risk. He knew this; he never forgot that storm cloud on the horizon.

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