Julius's Passion (Regency Club Venus #4) - Carole Mortimer Page 0,3

old is Bethany now?”

“Nineteen.”

Nineteen!

Dear God, how that number had haunted Julius and his three close friends these past months, since one of them, Gabriel Templeton, the Duke of Blackborne, had learned he had a niece of that age living, born to the sister who had been disowned by their father twenty years ago. Gabriel had been searching for his sister for years, but had only recently received news of her death all those years ago during childbirth, and the incarceration in an asylum of her married lover after he went mad with grief. Gabriel was in France at this very moment, making enquiries as to what had become of his now nineteen-year-old niece.

So far, Julius’s friends, Bastian, Gabriel, and Benedict, had all married, or were about to, three women they’d initially suspected of being the missing niece.

Julius found it hard to believe that here was yet another young lady of that same age.

As James’s younger sister, she obviously could not be Gabriel’s missing niece, but nevertheless, after what had happened to his friends, and as Julius valued his own bachelorhood state, it was cause enough for him to view meeting Lady Bethany Metford with a cautious eye.

Chapter Two

“The Earl of Andover, my lord,” the butler announced loftily.

Bethany glanced up from pouring her uncle’s afternoon tea so that she might observe the entrance of this unexpected guest. She found herself transfixed as the handsomest gentleman she had ever seen strode confidently into the elegant drawing room her uncle preferred they retired to in the afternoons.

Easily several inches over six feet tall, and possibly aged in his early thirties, the Earl of Andover had fashionably overlong dark golden hair and eyes so pale a blue, they appeared almost gray beneath fierce dark-gold brows. His aristocratic face could not have appeared harder or more uncompromising if it had been carved out of marble. High cheekbones, aquiline nose, and sculpted lips above a strong and distinctive jawline completed the intimidating visage.

He appeared to be a haughty as well as handsome gentleman.

“Bethany, you are about to burn yourself!”

Her uncle’s warning caused Bethany to look down to where, because she had been so mesmerized by the earl’s appearance, she had continued to pour the tea until it overflowed the cup and now threatened to do the same to the tea trolley.

“Oh good grief!” She quickly placed the pot down on the trolley to instead pick up a napkin and attempt to mop up the hot liquid before it cascaded onto the dark blue Aubusson rug. The rug was a favorite with her uncle and, as he liked to tell everyone who visited, had been brought here at great expense from France immediately after the hostilities had ceased between that country and England.

Color burned her cheeks for having behaved so clumsily in front of such an elegant and handsome gentleman as the Earl of Andover.

“Careful!” Long fingers wrapped about her wrist to pull her hand out of the way as the hot tea refused to be checked and instead continued toward the edge of the wooden trolley before, as she had tried to avoid, dripping onto the carpet.

Bethany’s breath caught in her throat as she gazed up at the man who towered over her by at least a foot and whose fingers were causing the skin at her wrist to tingle.

This close to him, she could also see the darker flecks of blue in his eyes and, as she drew in a much-needed breath, inhale the headiness of his cologne. It was a mixture of sandalwood and lemon with the underlying maleness of horseflesh and good cigars.

She moistened lips that had become dryer the longer she stared at him. “Thank you.”

“Did you hurt yourself, child?” Her uncle rushed to her other side to gently pull her wrist out of the other man’s grasp and inspect the skin for burns.

She lowered her lashes. “I did not, thank you, Uncle. But I fear the rug did not fare as well.” She released herself to pick up one of the napkins before falling to her knees to begin mopping up the tea before it stained the carpet.

Julius drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the young lady, whom he could only assume was Lady Bethany Metford and James’s sister, dropping to her knees mere inches in front of him.

Dear God, if she lifted her head only fractionally, her mouth would be on a level with his rapidly rising cock.

Her coloring and height were both different to that of