Surrendered--Colours of Love by Kathryn Taylor

Author:Kathryn Taylor [Taylor, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-3-7325-3811-9
Publisher: Bastei Entertainment
Published: 2017-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

12

“Whatever can have happened?” my father asks me, while we wait for Mallory to open the heavy door to Ashbury Hall for us.

I know he’s terribly tense and nervous, so I forgive him for repeating the question he’s already asked what has felt like a thousand times on the drive over here.

To him, the most plausible explanation is that Lord Ashbury has found out about my affair with Matteo and decided to demand an explanation. Actually, I’m a little afraid of that, too — although, in the car, I vehemently denied that could be the reason for the summons.

“If he doesn’t trust Bertani anymore, what will we do?” Dad gives me a reproachful look, but I’m not prepared to get into an argument about that yet.

“Let’s find out what the actual problem is first,” I reply coolly, still angry that he can’t leave Matteo out of this.

However, I’m very conscious of how important it is that we present ourselves to Lord Ashbury as the serious, tried and trusted “Conroy’s” team. So, after Matteo’s call, I left for the auction house right away to arrive with Dad. Actually, I drove the car myself, since Dad seemed so upset.

But I’m worried, too. I wish Matteo were with us. But he got here quicker: his Alfa was already parked in front of the mansion by the time I park our car there.

“His Lordship is waiting for you in the blue drawing room,” Mallory announces — wearing his old-fashioned livery again — as he opens the door.

We follow him in silence, so we can already hear the loud, angry male voices from behind the door to the blue drawing room from quite a distance. One of them belongs to Matteo, but the other one isn’t Lord Ashbury’s. When Mallory opens the door and lets us in, I see that there’s a third man in the room, along with the other two.

He seems to be in his late forties, and he’s significantly shorter than Matteo or Lord Ashbury. His medium-brown hair is already thinning on the crown of his head, and his small dark eyes are flashing aggressively as he stands puffed up in front of Matteo.

“But you can’t definitively prove it,” he’s saying defiantly. “Because the picture wasn’t painted by Enzo. And that’s what we’re now going to …”

He breaks off and looks over when he notices our entrance, as do Matteo and Lord Ashbury. The men take a step apart and fall silent while Mallory dutifully announces our arrival and then withdraws.

“It’s good that you’re here,” says Lord Ashbury, but I can tell from his face there’s nothing good about it. He looks bewildered, as if he no longer knows what to think. I can’t even detect the hostility that was in his eyes during my previous visits. He seems overwhelmed more than anything else.

“This is my friend, Arnold Highcombe,” he says, introducing the third man. I immediately seek out Matteo’s gaze. His look reveals that he’s not very happy to have to deal with the guy in person again, since he already had such a low opinion of him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.