The Uncatchable Miss Faversham by Elizabeth Moss

Author:Elizabeth Moss [Moss, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Historical, Regency, Historical Romance
Amazon: B0058PRJSI
Publisher: Thimblerig Press
Published: 2011-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Eleanor could not quite believe how very badly the evening had gone. If she had know what would happen, she would never, ever, have ridden out here alone in search of his hideout. She had promised Charlotte she would help, but no friendship was worth this onslaught of anguish and humiliation. Nor had she intended things to go so far between them.

He swung in behind her on the track beside the glimmering river. ‘After you, Miss Faversham.’

She was not sure which was worse – his previous hostility and frosty demeanour, or this sardonic flippancy.

‘Thank you,’ she responded tightly, and kicked Desdemona into a reluctant trot, glad of the moonlight.

The sooner she returned to London the better. There, she was far less likely to find herself alone with a man and so could hardly compromise herself again. It would only take one colourful incident like this, observed and whispered about in polite society, for her reputation to be so damaged she would be forced either to retire disgraced into obscurity or get married.

And marriage was something she refused to countenance.

Give up her freedom to a man, to become his legal possession and his social inferior?

Her father had said it often enough: no man would consent to marry under such disadvantageous terms were the boot on the other foot.

The woods gradually closed in as they rode alongside the river. Desdemona began to sidle about, spooked by the menace of rushing water and shadowy trees, and Nathaniel made a grab for her bridle as the horse stumbled.

Eleanor stared at him coldly. ‘Would you be so good as to unhand my reins, sir? I am considered a tolerable rider and can manage to control my own horse, thank you.’

‘So it seems. You were not, in fact, about to be thrown?’

She blushed at the caustic bite in his reply. With him, some devil always drove her on to defy him. In London, she was well enough known for her high spirits and flirtatious ways, but never, she devoutly hoped, for any coldness or disdain towards the gentlemen. Yet here, in his company, she was fast in danger of becoming a complete fright, quite as stern as any governess.

‘Desdemona is a trifle skittish, I will concede – ’

‘Desdemona?’

Her lips tightened and she glared back at him coldly. ‘Yes, Desdemona.’

‘I see,’ he said drily and drew alongside her, his knee bumping her own as he kept one guiding hand on her bridle. ‘It is safer this way.’

‘And highly uncomfortable!’

His gaze shot to her face, and even in the darkness she could see the glimmer of unholy amusement in his eyes.

‘I am sorry you should think so, Miss Faversham. Yet you seemed not to mind my proximity just now.’

‘If you were a gentleman, you would not find it amusing to raise such a topic.’

‘Ah, but I am not a gentleman,’ he countered swiftly. ‘ Not when I am with you, at any rate. With you, I am ...’ He paused, frowning. ‘A madman, I sometimes think.’

‘Am I supposed to find comfort in that statement.

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