Secrets of Midnight (The Man of My Dreams Series) by Minger Miriam

Author:Minger, Miriam [Minger, Miriam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walker Publishing
Published: 2010-11-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Men!

If it wasn’t enough that Donovan continually occupied Corisande’s mind, this past interminable week had proved a trial like nothing else she’d known, now that Oliver Trelawny’s whereabouts plagued her, too, and she was growing more worried by the hour.

Staring out the window into the pitch-dark night, Corisande hugged her arms to her breasts as she looked for the signal that she’d been awaiting for three days now. It wasn’t ten o’clock yet, though she still couldn’t help looking.

Corisande sighed and glanced over her shoulder at the small gilt clock above the mantel. No, only quarter to ten. Fifteen minutes yet to wonder and worry if Oliver and the twenty-man crew of the Fair Betty were back safe and sound from France. Lord, what could have kept them?

Oliver hadn’t sailed out early last Wednesday morning as he’d planned, the gale he’d so welcomed becoming a fierce spring storm that had churned up the sea and slashed the Cornish coast with torrential rain, delaying his departure until Friday before dawn. Those two days for Corisande had been the worst, when she’d been cooped up in the house with Donovan because the weather was simply too foul to venture out.

Oh, he’d left her alone. He’d left her alone all week, in fact, those first several rainy days by staying in his library much of the time and saying he had work to do. So she’d played the agreeable wife and left him alone, too, spending her time reading dusty old novels and exploring the house with Ellen Biddle.

It hadn’t been her idea, but the housekeeper had seemed eager to get started on what yet needed to be done around the place, and she wanted Corisande’s opinions. Of course, Corisande knew nothing about the latest styles in drapery and upholstery fabric and the best ways of arranging furniture, but she tried to show suitable interest. Yet all the while she couldn’t help thinking again of how within weeks every room would be shuttered and closed, the house settling once more into dust and disuse.

Oddly enough, the thought had bothered her. Everything seemed to be bothering her, so she tried to keep such troublesome musings out of her head.

Like the fact that Donovan rarely spoke to her. No, not even in front of the servants, which had made her task of appearing content all the more difficult. He was especially silent at night when that dreaded time came for them to adjourn to bed, but thankfully much of the awkwardness had been eased straightaway when he’d gruffly said it made no difference in whose room she was found sleeping in the morning now that she had been “properly bedded.” Since then, he had made no other reference to that disconcerting night, clearly not wishing to discuss it further, and neither had she.

That bothered her, too. Not that he wouldn’t discuss what had happened, but that it had happened at all.

Oh, Lord, she still couldn’t believe she’d come so close to allowing Donovan to kiss her.

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