Haunted by the Earl's Touch - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,84
you were not searching the tunnels, but rather were leaving for home.’ There, she had as good as voiced her suspicions.
He frowned, his gaze searching her face. ‘I found you on the road.’
‘Bad luck for you, I suppose,’ she muttered and was surprised when he flinched. It seemed she’d struck a nerve. ‘Just like the near miss at the cliff and the lucky escape from the barrel. Marriage must seem a great deal more certain at this point.’
The words hung between them like a sword waiting to strike a death blow.
His face turned to granite. His gaze moved from hers and fixed off in the distance. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were the grey of a winter storm. ‘Your powers of deduction are truly astounding.’
No denial. No claims of innocence. All her longing for one person in her life who would care about her balled into one hard lump in her throat. A burning painful blockage that no matter how hard she swallowed would not go back where it belonged in the deep reaches of her soul.
Perhaps if he would just pretend to care, it would not feel quite so bad. She forced a bitter smile. ‘Even women are capable of logic when it stares them in the face.’ The husky quality in her voice, the grief she hoped he would not recognise, came as a shock. Not even Sally’s betrayal had left her with such a feeling of desolation.
‘If your logic leads you to the understanding that marriage to me is your best chance of survival, then I am glad.’
She could not control the tremor that rocked her deep in her bones. The threat in his voice was unmistakable.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Wharton will have quite a time of it, preparing your trousseau at such short notice,’ Mrs Hampton said the next afternoon, as they sat taking tea in the drawing room. ‘We should visit her first thing in the morning.’
His lordship looked up from the letter he was writing. ‘Only a few things are required. A morning gown. A travelling dress. Send her a note. She has Mary’s measurements. We will visit a proper modiste in town after the wedding.’
Mary glowered at the pair of them, tired of the way they decided everything between them. ‘I don’t need new clothes for a wedding no one but family will attend.’
‘You will need appropriate attire for the journey to London, however,’ his lordship said. He rose from his chair and went to the window to look out. It was the second time he’d done that in the space of an hour.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ she asked.
He looked more than a little startled and if she wasn’t mistaken his colour heightened on his cheekbones. ‘Templeton. He said he would either come himself or send a message. I expected him yesterday.’
‘I do hope nothing bad has befallen him on the road,’ Mrs Hampton said, absently. ‘What about this one?’ she continued, holding up a fashion plate for Mary to see. A dark-blue military-style pelisse over a shirt with a ruffle around the neck. ‘It is all the crack according to the Assemblée.’
‘Too much frill,’ Mary said. ‘I prefer something simpler.’
Bane went to the hearth and rang the bell. The butler shuffled in a few moments later. His face was impassive, but Mary felt sure his eyes were curious. All the servants must be talking about them spending the night together. ‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Send word to the stables that I require Henry to take a message to St Ives.’ He glanced over at Mary and Mrs Hampton. ‘How soon can you have a list ready for the seamstress?’
Mary put her teacup on the table beside her, rose and took the magazine from Mrs Hampton. She flipped through the fashion plates until she saw what she was looking for. ‘This one,’ she said, showing the older lady. ‘And this carriage dress.’
Mrs Hampton reviewed her choices, then nodded. ‘Yes. Yes. You are right. You are a perfect height to carry these off.’
A perfect height? No one had ever called her height perfect before and yet there was no trace of mockery in the other woman’s voice. ‘Then the matter is settled.’ She sent a glance of triumph at Bane.
He didn’t seem to notice.
‘If you will excuse me, Mrs Hampton,’ she said, reining in her irritation, ‘I find I have run out of reading material. If you need me, I will be in the library.’