The Fortune Hunter Page 0,66

thought at all?

"And now it has been pointed out?" he asked carefully.

Amy's heart constricted painfully. Was it all to do again? Nothing had really changed except now her fortune was within grasp, not hypothetical. "Now," she said woodenly, "I am going to marry Sir Cedric."

"My felicitations." He dropped her reins and set his horse in motion again.

Amy held her horse back and let him go. She felt sick. After all that had gone before he would have asked her again, given the smallest encouragement. His feelings perhaps ran as deep as hers and it could not be. Not when Sir Cedric and his millions were as good as hers.

But the thought that she was hurting Harry as much as she was hurting herself was close to unbearable. If there had been any sense to turning back and fleeing the rest of the day she would have done it, but Lord Randal was already riding back to see why she was just sitting there. She saw the others turn in some gates. At least they had arrived. She kicked her sluggard mount into a trot and followed.

Maiden Hall was an old house, a timbered Elizabethan sprawl in which few of the verticals or horizontals were straight. Riotously flowering borders surrounded it, backed by tall hollyhocks and delphiniums, and old-fashioned roses scrambled over the uneven surfaces on trellises.

The whole house seemed organic, growing out of the earth. It was beautiful and looked nothing like the home of a gazetted rake.

The rake himself lived up to Amy's expectations, however, when he came out to greet his guests. Tall, dark, handsome, and dressed with devastating informality in an open-necked shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose his arms like a laborer. No one could fail to be aware of a lithe body beneath the slight amount of clothing, and there was a wicked gleam in his eye even if he was supposed to have been tamed by matrimony.

Amy found it difficult to believe that the very ordinary woman by his side had achieved such a miracle. Lady Templemore was short and her gown was a simple green muslin. Her face was close to plain and her brown hair was gathered into a simple knot at the back.

But then she smiled at her guests and was beautiful. When she turned to her husband with a comment, she was dazzling, and the look in his eye showed he was tamed indeed, if devotion so heated could be called tame at all.

Amy looked over at Harry Crisp, who had dismounted to greet the Templemores. He would look at her like that, given the slightest encouragement. She'd seen the pale trace of it in his eyes that day in the kitchen, and the same, tightly controlled, just a little while ago. Perhaps he felt her eyes on his, for he turned, and after a hesitation came to assist her.

His eyes were shielded but could not hide his feelings. His hands burned at her waist as he lowered her. They lingered there far longer than necessary.

"I'm sorry," Amy said helplessly. "Oh dear. Why do I keep apologizing to you?"

He sighed with bleak humor. "Perhaps because you are constantly at fault? I wonder what sins I committed in some previous existence to have encountered you, dear Amethyst."

She placed a hand on his arm. "Don't call me that, please."

He moved away, then held out his arm. "Come and be introduced to your hosts. You have something in common with Ver. He doesn't like his name either."

Amy was introduced to Lord and Lady Templemore, but when she made her curtsy and attempted to address them as such found Harry's words were true.

"If you wish to be invited here again," the viscount said with a smile, "you will address me as Ver, and Emily as Emily. Outrageous, I know, but I have always been so and make it my practice to infect everyone I meet. So you won't feel uncomfortable, we will address you as Amy. Unless," he added with a distinctly wicked look, "you prefer Amethyst?"

Now, how did he even know her real name? Amy cast an alarmed look at Harry. Did the whole world know everything?

"You forget, Amy," said Verderan, offering an arm to lead her into the house, "Harry was staying at my hunting box when you had your contretemps with him."

Amy allowed herself to be led in, feeling as if she were being taken to court. Had she walked into a trap? It would not surprise her to find herself