The Daring Duchess by Paula Marshall

The Daring Duchess by Paula Marshall

Author:Paula Marshall
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-03-20T05:00:00+00:00


Chapter Ten

‘My son has arrived and is waiting for me in the blue drawing room. Are you sure of that? It is most unlike him not to inform me of his proposed visit beforehand.’

‘Quite sure, m’lady. He has asked that you see him as soon as you returned from your engagement since he has urgent business in London, which he needs to attend to immediately.’

Lady Fortescue and her widowed sister had just returned from an afternoon party spent at a neighbour’s house nearby. Neville’s aunt Susan was quite unlike her sister. She was a jolly woman, plump and rosy, with a great sense of humour. Neville’s mother was beautiful, but cold and severe; her sense of humour appeared to be non-existent.

Susan Harrow thought that the difference between them had been the consequence of Emily’s dreadful life with Sir Carlton Fortescue because when they had been children together there was not a pin to choose between them in their enjoyment of innocent mischief. She said, briskly and kindly, ‘You must join him at once, Em.’

‘I do wish that you would not call me Em,’ was Lady Fortescue’s frosty reply. ‘You make me sound like a junior parlour maid, but I suppose that I must go to him as soon as possible.’

‘Of course, Emily, it is your duty to oblige him since he has never given you a moment’s trouble—unlike most young men these days.’

‘Except that he consistently refuses to marry.’

‘Well, that is his choice, not yours. Now off with you and, while you are gone, I will arrange for some refreshments for us all when his business with you is over.’

Neville knew the moment that his mother came in that his sudden unheralded arrival had displeased her. His heart sank. How the devil was she going to behave when, however delicately and tactfully he phrased it, he asked her if she had had an affair with Lord Burnside and whether he was the unfortunate result: a bastard in fact, if not in law.

His internal language was getting worse and worse these days!

His mother, as he had expected, remarked repressively, ‘What on earth can be so urgent, Neville, that you dispense with all the normal courtesies and arrive here unexpectedly?’

To his surprise Neville, who had always before given way to her bullying by going on the defensive, replied coldly, ‘Well, since you ask me so politely, Mother, my errand concerns you and your possible lack of manners in the past.’

The moment that the words were out, and spoken in such a cavalier fashion, too, he regretted them, but there it was. He had changed, profoundly, since he had become involved in matters of life and death.

His mother, shaken by his manner, a manner that he had never used to her before, sank on to a nearby sofa and said faintly, ‘Whatever do you mean by that, Neville? Have you taken leave of your senses?’

‘On the contrary, I think I have only just come to them. Let me get to the gist of the matter.



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