Bronwyn Scott - The Secrets Of Lord Lynford

She gave him a polite smile he did not mistake for friendliness, although it did serve to warm him none the less. ‘I have found in the years of running my late husband’s mines that scheduled appointments can often result in misleading impressions. When one arrives unannounced, one sees a clearer representation of the truth.’ She was already a fortress of perfection in her dress and in her speech, but in her directness she was nigh on impenetrable. Eaton felt the urge to penetrate that directness, to lay siege to its walls.

‘You mean an ambush, Mrs Blaxland?’ Sparring with her was quite a warming exercise indeed. A part of him that had been dormant since returning from London was waking up.

‘An ambush assumes someone can be taken by surprise, that someone lets his guard down,’ she countered smoothly. ‘If one is always prepared, one cannot be caught unawares.’

When was the last time Eliza Blaxland had been taken unawares? From her cool façade, he would guess it had been a while, if ever. It was hard to imagine anyone got anything past her. Eaton would take that as a challenge—not that he wanted to take advantage, but he would like to surprise her, just to prove to her that it could be done. How would she react when things were out of her control?

He studied the flawless perfection of her face, its smooth contours with its elegantly set nose, green eyes and that mouth—that gorgeous pink mouth with its full, kissable lower lip. His gaze lingered there while his thoughts drifted. What would bring a crease to those perfect features? What might fluster her well-ordered world? Had old Huntingdon Blaxland ever flustered her, aside, perhaps, from dying? Would a kiss be enough to offset that world? She was a widow, after all. He could presume she’d been kissed before. Would she like to be kissed again? He found he would like to pursue that course of action. Between Richard Penlerick’s death and the school, it had been a while since he’d felt a spark of interest.

They were hardly the thoughts one ought to have about a wealthy patroness, yet when the patroness was so aloofly, coolly attractive, it seemed a natural progression of thought to wonder, what if? They returned to the main hall, the front door just feet away, providing a less-than-subtle opportunity to bid Mrs Blaxland farewell and get on with his day. ‘If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you here. As you have already ascertained, there’s much to be done.’

‘There is one more thing.’ She gave him another long perusing stare with those intelligent eyes. ‘I thought you’d be older. I was unaware Bude’s heir was so...young.’ She was implying that perhaps he might not be up to the task of overseeing a school, that a man of his age and station was better suited to the frivolous pursuits of London.

‘Twenty-eight is young?’ he queried with a sardonic cock of a dark brow. It was an odd remark coming from a woman who couldn’t be more than thirty-three, but time and age were different for females. ‘It’s been some time since anyone has thought of me as young. Good day, Mrs Blaxland. I will look forward to seeing you at the reception.’ He gave her a small bow in farewell. ‘I assure you that you needn’t worry. I am in my prime.’ He’d been unable to resist the final remark. Intuition suggested that no one teased Mrs Blaxland and someone ought to. People didn’t build impregnable fortresses around themselves without reason. He was intrigued as to what her reason might be.

‘You most certainly are,’ she acknowledged with a slight, indifferent nod of her head, but beneath that cool exterior, something akin to interest sizzled and flared in her gaze before it was snuffed out by practice and perhaps practicality. But it was too late. Eaton smiled over his little victory. She’d already given herself away. Eliza Blaxland wasn’t as unaffected or as distant as she appeared.

It had been a long time since she’d been surprised—not since the day Huntingdon had left for the office and never returned. Five years, eight months and three weeks, to be precise. Eliza sat back against the leather squabs of her coach and let out a deep sigh. In the intervening years, she’d become used to being the one doing the surprising; she’d had to if she meant to keep the shareholders on their toes. But Eaton Falmage, Marquess of Lynford, heir to the ducal seat of Bude, had done all the surprising this afternoon. The ambush had been her idea, hers to control, but she’d not been prepared for him . Eliza reached for her fan. From the first glance of his dark eyes, his heat had nearly incinerated her glacial cool.

Years of practice had made her confident in the belief that her skills would rise to any challenge, that her icy façade could not be cracked, that she was impervious to the powers of men. Lynford had challenged her today, though, not only as a patron, but as a woman. The former, she could deal with. Patronage was simply one of many business arrangements she conducted. The latter, however, well...that was different. She hadn’t been a woman—a real woman with real feelings and affections—since the day her husband died. For her daughter’s sake and her own sake, she couldn’t afford to indulge such a fancy.

When men looked at her, they saw a female facsimile—one that dressed elegantly, spoke with cultured tones, and danced divinely; one they often sought to possess—but the illusion fell away when she sat across from them at the boardroom table and delivered her verdicts in those cultured tones. Some men called her a snake in the grass, a viper waiting to strike, others called her a Siren, luring men to smash themselves against the icy granite of her façade. But today, Lynford had been formidable, a veritable Odysseus, undaunted by her surprise visit and undaunted by her.

She wished she could say the same. Eliza plied the fan a little faster. He was not only younger than she’d anticipated, he was also younger than her by five years. He was taller, broader, endowed with dark eyes that looked into a person’s gaze and long, powerful legs. Oh, how she loved a good pair of legs on a man and his had been on blatant display with no coats to hide them. In fact, his tight breeches and open-necked shirt had hidden nothing. He’d been in utter, unmistakable déshabillé, yet he’d not once apologised for his appearance or attempted to cover it up. The primal woman in her, so rarely unleashed, had rattled the bars of her cage, thrilling at the masculinity on show, a reminder that she wasn’t dead after all. It was an uncomfortable revelation.

Eliza closed her eyes. It had been so long since she’d felt anything akin to desire, or its milder counterpart, attraction. What a shock to discover it after five years of sexless living where she didn’t dare act either too much of a man or too much like a woman for fear she would be ridiculed for overstepping herself or taken advantage of for being herself. But what a most inopportune time for that discovery. She would have preferred Lynford to be a man nearing middle age, bearing a paunch at his stomach and silver at his temples with a conservative, tired air about him. She knew how to manage those men.

Her husband had been such a man, thirty-seven years older than she when they wed. Those men populated the Blaxland Mining Corporation board of shareholders, but Lynford exuded alertness, energy, a fresh boldness. He thought himself infallible and perhaps rightly so. He was a duke’s son. He was used to asserting himself, used to ordering the world according to his desire. He was not a businessman, a man like her husband had been, who limited the scope of his world to balance sheets. And Lynford, unlike her husband, was most definitely in his prime.

She had no such experience with a man like that: a man who looked at women and openly admired their beauty, a man who didn’t patronise, a man who matched her directness with his own. Nor could she allow herself to acquire such an experience.