The Devil's Heiress (CR 8) by Beverley Jo

Author:Beverley, Jo [Beverley, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Regency, Regency Fiction, Historical, Fiction, Romance, General, Inheritance and Succession, Widows, Love Stories
ISBN: 9780451202543
Publisher: Signet Book
Published: 2001-08-10T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

They walked over, as if in perfect accord, to look out at the view. Beyond the river lay peaceful fields, some with crops and some with cows. The land rose in the distance to the downs that lay between here and Brighton.

“What is the big white house up there?” she asked. “Steynings?”

“Yes.”

“Why is the village only on this side of the river?”

“The Eden’s deep here and tricky to cross, and the bridge is quite recent. Before that a person needed a boat or to go downstream a mile to Tretford to cross.”

She saw an old boathouse off to one side, unused now, wrapped around and split by wisteria.

“So Lord Vandeimen’s house wouldn’t have been built over there before the bridge.”

“Not unless he wanted to keep his inferior neighbors at bay.”

She sat on the seat and smiled up at him, simply happy. Happy with everything. “And did he?”

His hand continued to stroke the blissful cat. “When the first Baron Vandeimen settled here, he was inclined to look down on our simple ways, they say. Foreign, you see. Over the generations, they are beginning to fit in.”

Clarissa heard a laughing comment from Lord Vandeimen, but her attention was all on Hawk. His eyes were warm and full of humor. And something else?

He was very hard to read.

He looked out at the view again. “My bedroom is directly above here. We experimented with flashing candlelight messages in the night. Van and I could see each other’s lights, then Van and Con could send messages clear across the vale.”

“I’m surprised that isn’t done more often.”

“It is used—especially by smugglers—but, of course, it’s subject to bad weather. Come on, I’ll show you something else.”

He guided her back across the hall and up a short flight of stairs into another room as if she were the only one on this tour.

“But this is too big,” Clarissa said, looking around at a space that seemed as big again as the house.

“We call it the great hall, which is a little grandiose, but it serves the function. My mother held the occasional small ball here.” He led her further in. “Now you’re in the old tower.”

Then she understood where the extra space had come from. Most of the room was inside the hexagonal tower. To her right were the arrow slits she’d seen from the courtyard. Now she could see that they were glazed. There were more at regular intervals, but in the side of the tower opposite the door, another bank of windows had been cut. Since the tower walls were deep, the window seat was in an alcove of its own.

She went to kneel on the cushions to look out. This view was on a diagonal, looking out at a kitchen garden and an orchard, the trees already laden with small fruit. To the right she glimpsed the farm buildings he’d mentioned, and beyond, the river wound on through yet more fertile countryside.

“The kitchens and such are below, which is why this is raised.” He had come over to stand close behind her, so Jetta’s purr almost vibrated through her.

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.