The Return of Lord Conistone. Lucy Ashford
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fool to see it.
He said in a quiet voice, ‘I suppose I cannot blame you if you have come to hate me’.
She swallowed hard, suddenly aware that the air out here was oppressive with heat. As the shadows deepened, she heard a rumble of ominous thunder. And his eyes were already as dark as night. ‘Hate you?’ she replied, summoning false brightness. ‘No such powerful emotion, my lord; you see, the thought of you simply never crossed my mind! Though, may I say, I do not warm to your idea of arriving here, unannounced, to gloat over our misfortune’.
‘Verena. Stop it. Stop it,’ he grated out, so savagely that she flinched. Then he raked his hand through his dark hair and said, almost tonelessly, ‘I’m sorry if I ever gave you cause to think that I might find your plight—amusing’.
His hands. His long, beautifully shaped fingers. The way he used to caress her….. ‘No apology needed, my lord!’ Somehow she managed to keep a smile fixed to her lips. ‘You see, you never gave me any cause to think of you at all!’
She turned resolutely back to the house; but again he caught her, swinging her round to face him. ‘Verena’. His voice was almost a growl. ‘Wait. Please, I beg you. You must speak with me’.
She stood, unable to ignore the pressure of those warm fingers on her shoulders—a pressure that cruelly awakened feelings she’d thought long since dead. ‘What is there to say?’ she whispered. The thunder rolled nearer. A heavy drop of rain splashed on the ground by her feet.
‘Verena,’ he murmured, his fingers tracing tiny circles on her bare skin just above her collarbone—oh, no, she could feel her pulse racing at his merest touch. ‘You haven’t really forgotten me, Verena. You can’t have…’.
She jerked herself away from his treacherous hand and crossed her arms over her bosom. Dear God. Less than two years ago this man had walked out of her life, leaving her utterly bereft, and a target for the sneers of the whole county. Now he was here again. Why? She said with passionate defiance, ‘I have succeeded in forgetting you completely, my lord! And as for your sympathy—I can live without it, I do assure you!’
‘I was hoping to offer more practical help,’ Lucas Conistone said flatly. He looked up at the dark clouds, and a flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the hard line of his jaw. ‘Perhaps we could go inside and talk?’
‘Inside? The house?’ She looked as though he’d suggested they torch the place. ‘But—my mother is in there! Deb is in there!’
‘Deb?’ Lucas repeated the name almost blankly. Then he remembered that Deb was one of her three younger sisters, the foolish blonde one, the one he had least time for. He frowned. ‘Of what account, pray, is she?’
And Verena’s face, where before it had been anguished, was frozen into first shock, then shuttered coldness. ‘Oh, Lucas,’ she whispered. ‘Enough of this. I never expected to see you again. I never wanted to see you again. Please. Just go’.
So that was it, thought Lucas bleakly. She hated him. Just as well, he reminded himself. Yet she was so beautiful, with her hair tumbling now to her shoulders. And as for that damned gown, what buttons were left were barely managing to contain her luscious breasts; dear God, his blood surged with wanting her…. Grimly he fought down his arousal. ‘Verena,’ he said. ‘Verena, at least tell me why you are on the brink of losing your home’.
She stared. ‘Are you really going to pretend you don’t know? But of course, our activities are of no account in the kind of circles you move in…’. She gave a brittle laugh, but could not disguise the pain in her eyes. ‘It’s really quite simple, my lord. All our creditors have withdrawn their loans. And as the house is mortgaged, we must sell—everything’.
‘Everything?’ he echoed harshly. ‘Have you put everything up for sale?’
She gave a little shrug, then her fingers flew instinctively to secure her gown. ‘All that my family can survive without, yes. Furniture, paintings—the dealers have been through the house room by room’.
He drew a sharp breath. Here goes. ‘You might have other items of value, without realising it,’ he said quickly. ‘Have you thought of that?’
She looked shaken. ‘Such as?’
‘Such as your father’s personal possessions. Some people would pay good money for things you consider almost worthless. His papers, for example’.
‘His papers?’
He’d taken her by surprise, he could see. Her bewildered eyes—amber-gold eyes, dark-lashed, beautiful—met his again in shock.
‘Yes,’ he went on swiftly. ‘All his records of his travels abroad. Letters. Maps, perhaps. And—he kept some kind of diary, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she whispered, ‘he was always writing, about everything. But who would pay for such trifles?’
‘I can think of several people. In London, for example, there are Portuguese exiles from the war, rich men who would dearly love any descriptive mementoes of their homeland’. You liar, Conistone, he rebuked himself bitterly. You deceiver.
She jerked her head up, her eyes over-bright. ‘Then I’m sorry, my lord, to have to inform you that, firstly, I would never dream of parting with my father’s private letters to me. And, secondly, he always kept his diary with him’.
That was true, thought Lucas grimly. His latest diary. But…. ‘What about his older diaries? Weren’t there any he’d completed, and left here?’
‘No! And if he did, I would never, ever sell them!’ Her voice trembled, then recovered. ‘Excuse me, my lord, but I find your pretended—interest in our plight nothing short of humiliating!’
She tossed back her head in defiance, just as she used to; the gesture afforded him yet another glimpse of those creamy-smooth breasts. His anger boiled. Damn it, had that fellow Bryant really been kissing her? The thought of it tipped him over the edge; desire lurched at his groin as she struggled to cover herself. That was the kind of trick used by whores in London.
And she was daring to play high and mighty with him?
‘Humiliating?’ he grated. ‘You speak of—humiliation, when, good God, the moment I arrived, you were outrageously flirting with that witless army boor?’
Her eyes flew up to clash with his. ‘I was not flirting! And do not speak of him like that!’
‘I’ll speak of him exactly as I like! What is that man doing here? Why isn’t he with his regiment?’
‘You may as well ask the same of your friend Captain Stewart!’ Verena cried. ‘For his—reputation leaves a deal to be desired!’ It was true; she knew it was a long-standing joke that Alec Stewart, a year or so younger than Lucas, spent a good deal more effort on hunting heiresses than he did on hunting the French. ‘Besides,’ she went on furiously, ‘Captain Bryant is not a boor, he is our friend! He was injured at Talavera, and his wound is not yet completely healed. So he makes himself useful. He helps the Revenue men watch this part of the coast for smugglers and—French spies!’
She saw him almost sneer. ‘French spies? Things have been busy at Wycherley’.
‘Meaning?’ she snapped.
‘I also heard that four weeks ago there was a burglary here’.
She went very still. ‘How do you—?’
‘Gossip travels’.
She seemed to sag. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I, of all people, should know that…’. Her voice faltered, then recovered again. ‘Indeed, there was evidence of an intruder. But—’ again, that toss of the head ‘—nothing at all was taken, my lord! And even if it had been, what business is it of yours? Besides, Captain