Stephanie Laurens - Beyond Seduction

“Did his lordship manage to fix the mill?” Edmond asked.

Inwardly frowning, Madeline nodded. “Apparently. I heard from John Miller that all was well.” She’d assumed that any interaction between her brothers and Gervase’s sisters would result in his sisters exerting a civilizing influence on her often barbarian-brained brothers, but of that she was no longer so sure.

Until the incident of the mill, and the implied suggestion that Belinda, Annabel and Jane had been behind the other odd occurrences, too, she’d always thought Gervase’s sisters were eminently sane and sensible young women.

She wondered again what had given rise to their recent strange behavior.

“Is that all you wanted us for?” Harry asked. When Madeline nodded, he rose. “Because if so, we’re off to the library.”

Knowing she was supposed to, she looked her shock; it wasn’t hard to fabricate. “The library?”

Both Edmond and Ben had leapt to their feet; flashing farewell grins, they headed for the door. Harry played superior elder brother and let them jostle their way through, then looked back at Madeline and grinned. “You needn’t worry-we won’t do anything as childish as moving his lordship’s bull again. We’ve found far better sport.”

Before she could ask what, he was gone; she heard their voices echoing in the corridor as their footsteps faded, then the library door closed and silence descended.

What “better sport”? She could ask and demand to be told, but…if she wanted Harry to learn to exercise responsibility, that might be counterproductive.

Gervase’s observation that Harry would stop his boy’s tricks soon enough rang in her mind. All in all, raising Harry to his present age hadn’t tried her ingenuity overmuch, yet she knew-could sense-that the years to come were going to be more difficult.

Despite her best efforts to fill her father’s shoes, she wasn’t a man. A male. She might be a Gascoigne, but she was unsettlingly aware that there were certain interests men of their class developed that ladies neither indulged in nor necessarily understood.

Whether she could steer Harry through the next five years of his life was a question that sat uneasily, unresolved in the back of her mind. What she could do, what she vowed to do, was to do all she could to encourage him to take up the burdens of adulthood, and his title, and to accept the restrictions that entailed of his own free will. Perhaps to see his position as a challenge.

In that, his reaction to Sybil’s invitation was encouraging. Madeline made a mental note to thank Sybil accordingly.

Meanwhile, why the library? She inwardly snorted, and made another mental note to whisper in a few select ears that she would appreciate a warning should said ears’ owners suspect that her brothers were up to anything outrageous.

There was no point expecting them to transform into angels overnight.

The dinner that evening at Crowhurst Castle was a relaxed and relatively easygoing affair. Or rather, it should have been, and seemed destined to be so for everyone else, even Harry, yet for Madeline, from the moment she climbed the castle steps and followed Muriel into the front hall, she found herself subtly, curiously, and largely inexplicably off-balance.

The sensation-as if her world had fractionally tilted, as if its axis had suddenly canted-bloomed in the instant she reached Sybil, waiting to greet them beside the double doors leading into the drawing room.

“Muriel! Welcome.” Sybil and Muriel clasped hands, touched cheeks; although much younger, Sybil was very fond of the older lady. “Do go in.”

Turning from Muriel, Sybil’s eyes lit. “Madeline-I’m delighted you could come at such short notice.” Taking her hand, Sybil clasped it between hers. “Just our usual circle, my dear, to spread the word that Gervase is home for the summer, so to speak.” Sybil held her hand for a moment longer, her eyes searching Madeline’s, then she pressed her fingers. “Naturally, the girls and I are very glad he’s home.”

The emphasis suggested that Madeline should read something more than the obvious into the remark. Nonplussed, she smiled and retrieved her hand. “Of course. His presence must be a comfort.” She omitted any mention of Gervase needing to deal with strange difficulties like the mill, and stepped back to let Harry make his bow.

Sybil greeted him with her customary easy and gentle smile-underscoring the unusual way she’d interacted with Madeline, suggestive of something, but as to what Madeline had no clue.

Madeline knew Gervase’s father’s second wife distantly for many years, but over the past three years since Gervase had inherited the title and, Sybil and his sisters taken up residence at the castle, while Gervase himself had remained largely absent overseas, Sybil had held the fort, and thus had met Madeline regularly, at the very least every week. As the other senior lady of the small community and moreover one born to her rank, it was to Madeline Sybil had most often turned. They got on well, so Madeline wasn’t surprised to be greeted warmly. What she hadn’t expected was that peculiarly meaningful welcome.

Walking into the drawing room with Harry by her side, she told herself she’d over interpreted. Either that, or there was something going on with Gervase and his family that she didn’t know.

They’d barely crossed the threshold into the long, elegant drawing room when Belinda appeared at her elbow.

“There you are!” Belinda beamed, transparently delighted. “We’re so glad you could come.”

Madeline studied her curiously. “So your mother said.”

“Well, yes! I daresay she did.” Belinda’s exuberance dimmed not one jot. “Perhaps I can take Harry around to meet the others. Gervase is over there.”

Finding herself all but pushed in that direction, Madeline consented to step further into the room. Presumably Belinda had been instructed to ease Harry’s way; considering, justifiably she was sure, that from the superiority of her sixteen years Belinda would be able to manage him, she left her to it.

She herself needed no assistance, not in this company; with a smiling nod to Lady Porthleven, holding court on the chaise, and to Mrs. Entwhistle beside her, she strolled into the room.

And saw Gervase.

Standing before the marble mantelpiece, he was chatting with Mrs. Juliard. As if sensing an arrival, he glanced across the room. His eyes met hers; he stopped speaking.

And she stopped breathing.

It wasn’t his appearance that snatched her breath away-she’d seen him in settings such as this before, where his height and the width of his shoulders, tonight clad in a superbly cut walnut-brown coat, made him a cynosure for female eyes.

The subtle arrogance and less subtle command that cloaked his every movement, from the idle gesture of a hand to the way he turned his head, the strength and power implicit in the characteristic stillness of his stance-none of these things were responsible for her lungs seizing.

Nor was it his face, the features whose lines even in this company were startling in their lean, chiseled hardness, with aggressive clarity branding him a descendent of warrior-lords.

She’d encountered all these facets of him before, and they’d never affected her, impinged on her. They didn’t now, not of themselves.

It was the look in his eyes, the way he looked at her, that jerked her nerves tight, then left them taut and quivering.

Before she could draw breath, before she could even think, he turned back to Mrs. Juliard, excused himself, then strolled across the room to greet her.

Or, as her senses reported it, he prowled over to demand her hand; halting before her, his eyes on hers, he held out his hand, calmly waiting until, frantically shaking her wits into order, she remembered to surrender hers.