The Marshal's Pursuit by Gina Welborn

Author:Gina Welborn [Welborn, Gina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780373487240
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 21911562
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Suitability is the test of good taste always.

—Emily Price Post, Etiquette

Grahame Estate

East Lake Road, Tuxedo Park

7:04 p.m.

Malia stopped with Mr. Louden at the entrance to the drawing room. A white-bearded man sat in a chair reading a book. A stately woman with salt-and-peppery hair sat at a desk, her back to the entrance. Before Malia had time to blink, gasp or pose a question, Mr. Louden grabbed her arm, jerked her back behind the wall and breathed a “Shh.” They rested against the rosewood wainscoting. Her heart pounded in her chest.

Malia whispered, “That doesn’t look like ‘no one’ to me.”

“I remember saying ‘practically no one,’” he ground out.

“Someone sounds a bit unhappy.”

He grumbled under his breath.

Malia peeked around the wall into the drawing room—an explosion of French Renaissance and pink. A dozen, at least, varying-height candlesticks sat on the mantel above the massive fireplace, where a sofa and a lone chair were placed facing it. An unaccompanied desk behind the sofa. Two other chairs in an opposite corner on either side of a tabled chess set. Crystal chandelier and lemon-oil lamps. Gold-plated plaster ceiling. The walls, what little could be seen amid the paintings and tapestries, were pink-and-gold striped. Too much to admire meant nothing was admired.

As a whole, the well-lighted room, while elegantly and expensively furnished, was nothing short of aesthetically hideous.

Malia found that odd because, even though the light from the setting sun had been meager, she’d been able to tell that the forest surrounding the Queen Anne-style mansion was aesthetically manicured and the carriage house in neat array, as had been every room they’d passed by or through since the footmen and butler had met them by the side entrance and welcomed Mr. Louden. Then the housekeeper arrived and proceeded to take Malia’s hat and coat and suggest they wait in the French drawing room while she had rooms prepared for their visit. No mention had been made of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Grahame being in attendance, and certainly not of them being in the French drawing room.

Of the room’s two occupants, only one was speaking.

Mr. Louden placed his hand atop Malia’s head and nudged until she scrunched down. He leaned over her to look inside the room, his leg against her side, his face close enough that she could hear his even breathing. Malia focused on the conversation to keep from thinking how close his body was to hers.

“I’m telling you, Charles,” said the woman Malia deduced to be his grandmother, “a new sofa would solve the problem with this room.” She pushed back the rosy chintz drapes. “And curtains, new ones in silk. Yellow. You like yellow.” Wearing a periwinkle and ivory-lace day dress, the elegant woman looked no more out of place in the pink room than the framed nymphs above a Marcantonio Raimondi engraving that hung between the two towering windows. Short, straight-backed, with prominent regular features, Mrs. Grahame looked every inch an aristocrat.

The man Malia guessed was Mr. Louden’s grandfather used

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.