The Temporary WifeA Promise of Spring by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-345-53250-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

SIR PEREGRINE LAMPMAN was the owner, since his father’s demise three years before, of Reardon Park, a modest estate when compared with the lands of Amberley that adjoined it, but nevertheless large enough and prosperous enough to set him in the forefront of social life in the county. He lived in a neat eighteenth-century house of gray stone, built by his grandfather; the house was unimposing when compared to Amberley Court, which was set in a picturesque valley close to the sea, but it nevertheless contained no fewer than ten guest bedchambers.

Sir Peregrine was a man of sunny nature and considerable charm, a man who seemed always to be smiling. He was not particularly tall, but he was slender and graceful. His friends and neighbors were in the habit of thinking him handsome. Yet there was nothing in his appearance to set him above the ordinary. His hair was neither dark nor blond, neither straight nor curly, neither short nor long. His eyes were neither blue, nor gray, nor green, but a mixture of all three. His clothes were fashionable, yet there was no suggestion of the dandy about his person.

It was his charm and his friendliness that probably gave the impression of handsomeness. Women especially were wont to admire him. He always had a teasing word, and even sometimes a wink, for the older ladies. Miss Stanhope was in the habit of calling his behavior “outrageous,” yet she was clearly pleased by his attention. Miss Letitia Stanhope frequently simpered when “dear Sir Perry” commented on how becoming her new cap looked on her. He always thought, or pretended to think, that her cap was new.

He liked to flirt with the younger ladies and girls, yet always in just the right way so that none of them would ever mistake his intentions and consider them serious. For Peregrine had never been in love, despite his five-and-twenty years, and had never thought to be. It was too enjoyable to be free to let one’s eye rove, to set a blush to glowing in this one’s cheek, a sparkle in that one’s eye. And as for his real needs, he could satisfy those with no trouble at all during his not infrequent though never lengthy visits to London.

He particularly liked to flirt with Lady Madeline Raine, the sister of the Earl of Amberley, who was five years his junior. He had teased her and indulged her all through her girlhood when she had tried desperately to keep up with the energetic and frequently dangerous exploits of Lord Eden, her twin brother. For the past two years, since she had made her come-out, he had flirted with her. She knew the game and played it as skillfully as he. One could smile very directly into Madeline’s dancing eyes, pay her the most outrageous compliments, kiss the tips of her fingers, and know that the next moment she would tap one sharply on the shoulder with her fan, laugh back into one’s eyes, and whisk herself off to some other admirer.

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