Carole Mortimer - Season Of Secrets - Not Just a Seduction

‘Papa?’ Amanda looked at her father uncertainly as he stood in the doorway.

Elena’s breath caught in her throat as she at last looked up and took in Adam’s wide-shouldered appearance. He was pristinely attired in a deep-grey superfine, black waistcoat and pale-grey pantaloons tucked into black Hessians, with his dark hair brushed neatly back from his harshly handsome face. A face that looked every bit as remote as on the first occasion Elena had met him, grey eyes chillingly cold as he met her gaze unblinkingly. As warning, perhaps, that he deeply regretted the last time the two of them had been together? As if Elena had not already guessed that from the distance he had kept from her ever since then.

‘What do you have in the basket, Papa?’

Elena, having also noted the wicker basket beside him in the doorway, had been wondering the same. Especially as it gave every appearance of being a picnic basket.

‘Our picnic luncheon,’ Adam confirmed that suspicion.

‘A picnic, Papa…?’ Amanda looked even more bewildered.

He nodded. ‘It is the perfect day for it, if you two ladies would care to join me?’

Two ladies? Adam seriously expected Elena to join father and daughter for their picnic?

‘Really, Papa?’ For once Amanda completely forgot her usual reserve when in her father’s company, as she instead jumped up and down excitedly. ‘Oh, may we, Mrs Leighton? May we?’ She looked up at Elena appealingly with those beguiling sapphire-blue eyes.

Much as Elena loved the thought of sitting on a blanket beneath one of the splendid oak trees in the garden, or possibly beside the huge lake beyond the gardens at the back of the house, and enjoying a leisurely alfresco luncheon, she was unsure of the wisdom of spending even that amount of time in close proximity with Adam, following the inappropriate behaviour between them, and her confusion, and his frosty demeanour towards her, ever since.

‘Mrs Leighton?’ Adam prompted when she didn’t answer.

Elena deliberately kept her attention centred on Amanda. ‘I am sure you do not need my permission to join your father for luncheon, Amanda,’ she said with a smile. ‘I, however, have some things in the schoolroom in need of my attention—’

‘Such as…?’ Adam challenged her coolly; he had initially been unsure of the wisdom of inviting Elena to join them in the first place, but now found, contrarily, that he was more than a little irritated at her reluctance to accept that invitation now he had made it, dash it all!

A frown appeared between those blue-green eyes. ‘I have tomorrow’s lessons to prepare—’

‘And, as such, they can as easily be prepared this evening,’ he dismissed briskly. ‘It is too fine a day to spend all of it shut indoors.’

‘I would not wish to intrude.’ Her smile was overbright, her gaze not quite meeting his.

Adam’s mouth tightened. It was as he had thought might be the case; after his appalling behaviour, she could barely stand to look at him, let alone spend any more time in his company than she had to. Perhaps if he tried to ease her nerves? ‘It would be the ideal occasion on which to show off what I am presuming is one of your new gowns,’ he cajoled, while allowing himself to inwardly admire the way in which her deep rose-coloured gown perfectly complemented her ivory complexion and the darkness of her hair.

She wore those dark tresses in a less-severe style today, too, several loose curls at her temples and nape giving her a much more youthful appearance, bringing about a sudden recollection of how she had not been altogether honest with him in regard to her true age when she had first applied for the job.

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