Elizabeth Rolls – His Convenient Marchioness (страница 4)

That jolted Hunt from a particularly improper fantasy about how the lady might move in another context. If she knew he was a lord, then he hadn’t been mistaken. He did know her and he certainly shouldn’t be fantasising about her.

‘I can’t have my fairy tales?’

It was almost a wail from the little girl, but the boy turned to him, his face crimson, and nudged his sister.

‘What? It’s all your—oh.’ She shut up and looked at Hunt.

‘I’m very sorry, sir.’ She retained the merest lisp, utterly enchanting. Bright brown eyes, still with the glint of angry tears, gazed up at him out of a face framed with tawny curls and for a shattering moment he saw another small girl furious with an older brother.

‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ The boy was stiff with embarrassment.

Hunt regarded the flushed pair and nodded. ‘Accepted. But—’ holding the boy’s gaze and keeping his face stern, he pointed to their mother’s rigid back as she replaced the books ‘—no gentleman behaves badly to his mother.’

The boy bit his lip, but set his shoulders and went to his mother.

‘Mama? I’m sorry I was so rude. Please let Georgie have the fairy tales at least. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have teased her.’

The mother turned and Hunt saw bone-deep weariness in her face. And something else he recognised: love, unshakeable love for the child. ‘No, you shouldn’t.’

‘I... I can go without pudding, too.’

Her smile looked like it might turn upside down and Hunt was sharply aware of a longing to do something about that, to lift whatever burdens weighed her down. ‘I do have to fill you up with something. I’d rather you chose a book for yourself and promised to read it.’

‘Yes, Mama. I really am sorry.’

She ruffled his hair, and gave a smile that made Hunt’s heart ache. ‘I know. Go on. Choose your book.’

‘Perhaps I might help there?’ The offer was out before Hunt even knew it was there.

The mother stiffened. He saw it in the set of her slender shoulders, in the firm line of her mouth and his memory nudged harder, trying to get out.

‘That’s very kind, sir, but quite unnecessary.’

Hunt gave up racking his brains. ‘This is most embarrassing, but I cannot recall your name, ma’am. We have met, have we not? I’m Huntercombe, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. I’m surprised you remember me, sir. It was years ago. Thank you for accepting their apology.’

He smiled. ‘I think you were more bothered by them than I. Don’t give it another thought.’ So he did know her. Although from her clothes it was clear she did not move in society, nor was she eager to recall herself to him. She had avoided giving her name. Perhaps she had once been a governess. He would not have noticed a governess, but she might have remembered him if her charges had known his own children. He should not pry, but something about those expressive dark eyes held him, despite her obvious reluctance.

The little girl, Georgie, came and slid her hand into her mother’s. ‘Were you a friend of Papa’s, sir?’

He smiled at her. ‘We are not quite sure. Your mama and I were—’

‘He was Lord Peter Lacy,’ the child said. ‘I’m Georgiana Mary and that’s Harry.’

‘Georgie, sweetheart.’ Her mother took down the fairy tales again and handed them to her. ‘Take your book and sit down with it.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

Lord Peter Lacy. He was a younger son of the Duke of Keswick. Hunt wasn’t quite sure which younger son; Keswick and his Duchess had been nothing if not prolific, although a couple of their sons had recently died. But Lord Peter had married in the teeth of his father’s disapproval and dropped out of society. He remembered hearing something, but he had been mired in grief at the time and hadn’t taken much notice. Just who had he married...? His memory finally obliged.

‘Lady Emma Lacy,’ he said. ‘Of course. Dersingham’s daughter.’ It vaguely came back. Lady Emma Brandon-Smythe she had been. Dersingham had been furious, too. Granted, the match had not been a brilliant one for either party, but perfectly respectable. Keswick and the Earl of Dersingham had only objected due to their mutual loathing of each other. There had been whispers of star-crossed lovers.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s well? I’ve not seen him since the spring sitting.’ Not that he’d tried. He didn’t like the Earl above half.

‘I believe so, sir.’ The polite smile did not so much as touch the weariness in her eyes. ‘If you will excuse me, I must finish choosing our books.’

‘Of course, ma’am.’ Hunt stepped back with a bow. The child, Georgie, had referred to her father in the past tense and, given that Lady Emma was garbed in grey, it followed that... He took a deep breath and took a wild leap into the unknown.

‘I was very sorry to hear of Lord Peter’s death, Lady Emma.’ Lord Peter had been at least ten years younger than himself and he’d dropped out of society completely after his marriage. Hunt hadn’t even heard that he’d died, but he’d been a decent sort, with little of Keswick’s arrogance.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The unmistakeable shadow in her eyes was familiar. He’d seen it in his own mirror for long enough.

‘Mama?’

Hunt glanced down at the boy.

He brandished three volumes. ‘I’ve got this.’

Hunt nearly choked at the sight of this. ‘Hmm. Rather dull, I thought it,’ he said, dismissing all the wild extravagances of The Monk. Matt Lewis might cut him dead if it got back to him, but then again, he doubted even Lewis would consider his tale, in which a monk unwittingly raped and murdered his own sister, appropriate for a ten-year-old.

‘Dull?’ Harry’s face fell.

‘Yes. Beyond tedious.’ Gently he removed the volumes from the boy’s grasp. ‘But I can recommend Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Very exciting. You’ll like the talking horses.’

‘Talking horses? Thank you, sir.’ He looked at his mother. ‘I’ll get that then.’

‘You do that.’ Lady Emma’s voice sounded a trifle strained. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she added very quietly, laughter quivering beneath the surface, as the boy headed back to the shelves. ‘I wouldn’t have let him read it, but—’

‘Perhaps it was more palatable coming from me?’ he suggested. Lord, she was pretty when her eyes danced like that. Like the sea near his Cornish home. A man could drown in eyes like that...

Her mouth twitched. ‘Probably. Not that I would have been fool enough to tell him he wasn’t allowed to read it, but I’ve no idea how I would have wriggled out of that.’

He cleared his throat, uneasy at the sudden camaraderie between them. ‘Well,’ he said stiffly, ‘it cannot be easy for a woman to control a headstrong boy. Ought he not to be at school? Surely Keswick has something to say in that?’

The drowning blue froze to solid ice. ‘That, sir, is none—’

‘Excuse me, my lord?’ Hatchard stood in the doorway. ‘I have the Milton ready for you. Oh, good morning, Lady Emma.’

‘Good morning, Mr Hatchard.’ Along with her eyes, Lady Emma’s voice had iced over, the dancing amusement winked out as though it had never been.

A reserved, sober matron faced Hunt, nose in the air. ‘I won’t keep you, sir.’ She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye.’

It was a dismissal worthy of a duchess. ‘Ma’am.’ He took her gloved hand. It fitted perfectly within his and, standing this close, he was teased by the warm fragrance of woman, despite the fury seething in her eyes. No scent, just soap and something that was Lady Emma.

‘Au revoir.’ Goodbye was a great deal too final. The French said it much better.

Chapter Two

Their selections made, Emma hurried towards the front door of the shop, the box of books tucked under her arm. How dare he criticise her management of Harry? No doubt his children had been brought up by an army of governesses and tutors. He probably saw them once a day, if that. Although his sons would have been at Eton or Harrow, learning to gamble as her own brothers had! And what on earth was she thinking to find the man attractive? For a start he was married and years older than she was and she was a widow. A widow who had loved her husband to distraction. Besides, it was ridiculous for her pulse to leap and skitter simply because an attractive gentleman had spoken to her and made her laugh. He had been kind. Polite. And stuffy and critical.

But he was married, which made it appalling that she had permitted herself to feel any attraction. And he was the first person from her past in years who had neither ignored her, nor let his contempt show. Although to be fair, not all the gentlemen ignored her, although their contempt took a different form to that of the ladies. To these gentlemen a widow with a shady reputation was just the thing to enliven a dull existence. Not that she could quite see Huntercombe trolling for a mistress in a bookshop, even if she’d been dressed in silks rather than this dreary grey wool. Even if he had thought she couldn’t control her own children.

Harry shot ahead to open the door, something he hadn’t done on the way in. No gentleman behaves badly to his mother. ‘Shall I carry the books, Mama?’

Her breath jerked in. The man who followed them from Chelsea stood across the road, his expression insolent as he looked her up and down. She stiffened. Curse it! Who was he? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had recognised her and followed, thinking she would be ripe for an affair. Lord Pickford had done just that in May, taking her rebuff in bad part.