Vienna Wolfe by Mary Lancaster

Author:Mary Lancaster
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Kindle Worlds
Published: 2017-04-02T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

In all his thirty-eight years, Lord Warenton could not remember ever being quite so obsessed with a woman as he was with this French girl. He’d had many love affairs in the past, some of several years standing. But, in truth, no woman had ever played a large part in his life. The army had been the mainstay of his existence, women mere recreation, however exquisite. But somehow, Elise de Sancerre had burrowed under his skin and he was at a loss to account for it.

She was pretty, certainly, he allowed as he danced dutifully with Sylvia Renleigh. Not the cold loveliness of many established beauties, including the one currently in his arms, but one less perfect and yet much deeper. He liked, he needed, to look at Elise, at the quick laughter which lit up her whole face and the many, changing expressions in her fascinating, dark eyes. How could he never have seen her before? How could he have committed that crassest of sins and regarded a human being as just part of the furniture? And not just any human being, the one he was now so desperate to make love him.

In the regiment he now commanded, he’d never looked upon any of his men as unimportant. The lowliest soldier always had his part to play and he’d always recognized and acknowledged that. Perhaps unconsciously, he still regarded civilians as of lesser importance, less worthy of the same consideration. Or perhaps, he’d just been too focused on Sylvia and whether or not he could bring himself to take Caroline’s advice and marry the girl. Even now, as he made trivial conversation with her—Sylvia had no sense of humor—he could imagine her as mistress of his London house, and Warenton Park and even Questing. He could see her hosting political dinners and lavish parties and performing excellently all her duties as countess.

Where he could never imagine her was in his bed. It would be like making love to a block of ice or some inert statue...or Elise’s bolster.

His breath caught in sudden laughter and Sylvia’s gaze fixed on him in expectation...of what? An offer of marriage, no doubt. Thank God it had gone no further than the vague hopes of their respective families, because Warenton had no intention of marrying Sylvia now. He wanted the girl who daydreamed herself into accidents and longed to run away from the drudgery of her position to be a free pirate on the high seas.

The girl who felt so right and so damnably sweet in his arms, yielding and passionate and joyful. And whatever her circumstances, she was a lady in any way that mattered. Whatever her birth—and he doubted it was lowly, although he didn’t greatly care if he was wrong—she would not disgrace his family. She might baffle them or cause minor outrages by her lovable eccentricities, but that only made her all the more interesting to him.

However, he wasn’t stupid. She had told him she was six and twenty years old, still young compared to him, and sheltered.

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