Private Passions by Felicia Greene

Author:Felicia Greene [Greene, Felicia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-25T05:00:00+00:00

‘This is very serious.’ Andrew Balfour, Earl of Conbarr, murmured fitfully to himself as he combed his hair in the weak morning light. ‘Very serious indeed.’

He had barely managed to close his eyes, let alone sleep with any level of calm. It wasn’t the first time that Lydia Hereford had ruined his sleep; Andrew remembered a night during the Christmas festivities where he hadn’t slept until four, so annoyed he had been by Lydia’s conclusive victory in Blind-Man’s-Bluff. But after that moment in the linen closet—the moment when, to his surprise, he had lost any semblance of control—he couldn’t imagine Lydia doing anything other than throwing her arms around him.

Well. He could imagine her doing other things; things that he would blush to request from even the most experienced Covent Garden hoyden. He had lost a night to his imaginings; his cravings, newly discovered, and all the stronger for being so securely locked away. By the time morning had come, Andrew had spent so long in a hardened state that he feared for his other extremities.

Lydia Hereford? Really? What on earth had possessed him; what strange undercurrent of lust had dragged him out to sea? He had spent over a year being plagued by the woman, haunted by her proud, impetuous wildness—was this outpouring really the logical conclusion to so many months of such intense annoyance?

Yes. His reflection mocked him smugly as he stood above the wash-basin. And if you choose to call yourself ‘annoyed’ by Lydia over the past year, instead of something else, you are exactly as foolish as you look.

He could not, under any circumstances, see Lydia at the breakfast table. If he only managed to avoid her for enough time—an hour, maybe even two—he would manage to calm himself. He was sure of it. Luckily, after a hurriedly eaten bun left at his bedroom door by an erstwhile maid, Andrew remembered that Henry Colborne would be answering correspondence in the richly furnished Longwater library.

But Henry Colborne, to Andrew’s immense distress, did not treat the matter with the seriousness that it deserved. As he sat in his usual high-backed leather chair in the library, frustratedly running his finger around the rim of his cup of coffee, Andrew realised that his oldest and best friend was going to be irritating in the extreme.

‘Hah!’ Henry’s outstretched finger practically brushed the tip of his nose. ‘I knew it!’

‘Henry, be serious. I have no idea why… why the event occurred, and I have absolutely no wish to—’

‘Hah!’

Andrew leant back in his chair with a slight huff, watching Henry roar with laughter. Better to let him indulge himself, and wait for it all to blow over—perhaps then they would be able to talk seriously.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Henry would keep laughing forever. After several minutes of shaking shoulders and knee-slaps, Andrew wondered if his friend was going to finish the morning under a doctor’s care.

‘I told you! I knew it from the very first!’ Henry sighed, the sound full of a smug contentment that made Andrew’s hackles rise.

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