The Officer and the Proper Lady. Louise Allen
Читать онлайн книгу.grasped his forearm. ‘He is said to be lethal.’
‘—but I will not, lest your name were to be linked to the affair,’ Charles said, as if she had not spoken. ‘You will not, naturally, have anything more to do with him.’
‘What?’ Julia gasped. ‘I have no intention of doing so, but you have no business telling me with whom I may, or may not, associate, Mr Fordyce!’
‘I most certainly have, unless you have been playing fast and loose with me, Miss Tresilian.’ It was not easy, quarrelling in a moving carriage behind a team cantering through near darkness, but Charles Fordyce was obviously set on it.
‘You, sir, have been leaping to quite unwarranted conclusions,’ Julia snapped.
The big grey suddenly surged ahead of them, crossed between their team and the rear of the Masters’ carriage in front and was brought round to canter close beside Julia.
‘What the devil!’ Fordyce exclaimed.
‘Miss Tresilian, do you need assistance? You sounded distressed.’
Julia glared up at Hal, suddenly completely out of charity with the entire male sex. ‘I am perfectly fine, thank you, Major Carlow. Will you please go away?’ I would be as calm as a millpond, if it were not for you, she wanted to throw at him, confused at her own anger.
‘Ma’am.’ He spurred the horse ahead without looking back, leaving Julia fulminating beside an equally furious driver.
‘He has the nerve to ask if you are all right when you are driving with me?’ Charles Fordyce demanded. ‘That hell-born blood thinks you need protection from me?’
‘Mr Fordyce!’ Julia grabbed the side rail as the carriage lurched. ‘Will you kindly look to your horses and stop lecturing me and ranting about Major Carlow?’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘I apologise for boring you.’
‘Not at all,’ she replied, equally stiffly as they drove on in seething silence.
Well, at least I know he has an unpleasant jealous streak. Better to know now than after I have agreed to marry him, Julia thought, wondering how she was going to explain the disappearance of one of her handful of suitors to her mother and Lady Geraldine.
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