‘Bella said you are lucky to be alive, Mr Leatham.’
‘So they tell me.’ Now he sounded typically clipped and unfriendly, his eyebrows already aching with the force of his scowl while the weight of her expectant stare was making his toes curl inside his boots. At a loss as to how to salvage the situation, he stared down at his hands and willed the floor to open up and swallow him.
‘I see you are reticent to talk about it.’
‘Seb is a man of few words.’ He could hear the affectionate smile in Bella’s voice and risked glancing up, only to find his eyes immediately lock once again with Lady Clarissa’s. She must have seen the heat and longing hidden in their depths because the corners of her plump, pink mouth curved knowingly. He supposed a woman like her was used to being admired, but it still annoyed him to be so transparent, so he resolutely stared back at his coarse, callused hands with the most unfriendly expression he could muster. Why had he gazed winsomely at her? Society ladies weren’t for him any more than society was. What a fawning idiot.
‘Or Mr Leatham is merely being mysterious to pique my interest?’
Pique her interest! Now she was making fun of him. Seb lifted his eyes defiantly as he glared, his stubborn pride refusing to let him appear less than he wanted the world to see, or revealing his pitiful shyness. ‘There’s nothing much to tell, my lady. It all happened in a moment.’
‘A significant moment, though.’
‘Which rendered me blessedly unconscious.’ An outright lie as he had lain on the ground in agony in a pool of his own blood far too aware of his life ebbing away. ‘I have no memories of the event. Nothing to entertain you with.’ Splendid. He was barking again. Conscious of the vision’s eyes still on him, Seb sat silently and hoped she’d quickly lose interest, as ladies were often prone to do when confronted with his legendary charm and lack of real gentlemanly credentials.
A waft of something truly wonderful and feminine tickled his nose as she moved to sit on the sofa with her sister. Whatever it was, it altered the air in the room until everything was enlivened by her fragrance, heightening his remaining senses while he avoided directly looking at either of them in case he appeared smitten as well as struck dumb. He heard rather than saw the rattle of teacups. Mumbled thanks as his forgotten one was removed and replaced with a fresh one, then only risked picking it up when the two ladies were happily chatting about the state of the roads between Nottinghamshire and London. When the topic changed to society gossip, Seb allowed himself to relax while simultaneously trying to blend into the wallpaper. As there was nothing he could add to the conversation and nobody was likely to ask him anything, he took his first sip and covertly studied the vision as she talked.
Lady Clarissa was every inch a beautiful and sophisticated titled lady. Impeccably attired in what he assumed were the latest fashions, there wasn’t a single hair out of place on her pretty head despite the fact she had travelled two hundred miles in a carriage. The symmetrical and casually loose ringlets which framed her cheeks were too bouncy, the intoxicating perfume too vibrant. If he were a betting man, Seb would lay good money on the fact she had stopped at an inn close by so that she could repair any damage and arrive looking as fresh as a daisy, rather than as wilted as a wet lettuce leaf like all the mere mortals would after days on the road. Surely nobody was that perfect? Judging by the creaseless silk of her becoming travelling dress, she had changed, too. No fabric looked that good after a jaunt up the Great North Road, especially when it moulded to her upper body like a second skin.
And it wasn’t just the external façade which both bothered and intrigued him. Her voice was like warm honey, slow yet animated at the same time. Perfect for story-telling and he found his own ears hanging on her every word while his eyes kept being pulled by some invisible force to watch her. Whilst that was no hardship, the more he observed, the more he saw.
She had that practised way of moving he had noticed in others of her ilk, only magnified, which showed off her face and figure to perfection, yet the effortless grace didn’t quite ring true either. A tad too choreographed to be natural. Even the position of her fingers as she held her teacup smacked of previous rehearsal, as if she had spent hours sat in front of a mirror, trying to discern the very best position to show off the delicate bones and the slimness of her wrist beneath the gossamer lace at her cuffs. Too perfect once again. Everything about her was too perfect, from her ridiculously long and seductive lashes to the oh-so-casual flick of that precisely positioned wrist.
Seb spent most of his life pretending to be someone else, usually a better man than he was, so he recognised an act when he saw one. Lady Clarissa Beaumont was a good actress. So good that her own sister didn’t appear to notice the brittleness of some of her smiles or the flashes of sadness in her lovely cornflower eyes between blinks. The unconscious jerkiness of some of those movements that suggested she was nervous or uncomfortable.
While there was no doubting the instant and wholly male reaction he had experienced upon first meeting her, because she truly was the most exquisite woman he had ever seen, it was that hidden mystery which now piqued his interest. Those little clues to the real woman she might be beneath the carefully constructed mask she wore so well.
She must have sensed him watching her, because her eyes suddenly locked again with his. ‘Don’t think for a minute I have forgotten you, Mr Leatham.’ Hot tea sloshed out of his cup and on to his leg at his being so hideously caught out. Only sheer pride held back the yelp of pain as he forced himself to return her gaze. For several long moments she searched his almost snarling face, then she picked up her teacup again and slanted him a coquettish glance over the rim.
‘There is nothing I adore as much as a mysterious man. Is there a Mrs Leatham I should know about?’
The sudden and unexpected flirting tied his damn tongue into gauche knots again, although while he faltered he also knew with certainty she had done it on purpose. Another layer of artful trickery to hide the real her.
Clarissa maintained the forced smile until the bedchamber door closed with a soft click, then her expression crumpled as the ever-threatening tears finally leaked their way out. Pretending everything was normal was proving exhausting, especially in front of a handsome stranger whose intelligent, hostile eyes seemed to bore into her very soul to the panicked and terrified girl inside.
Even if Mr Leatham hadn’t been here, Clarissa acknowledged she wouldn’t have shared her shame with her sister, because there was so much about herself she was ashamed of that hiding it was second nature. But at least if it were just them she would take solace in her younger sibling’s calm and straightforward manner. Bella had always been the sensible one. Clarissa had fled here needing that honesty and forthrightness, needing to know that there were no subtle nuances or hidden meanings in conversations, hoping that a few days of not having to pretend to be perfect would fortify her enough to endure the rest of the awful Season—no matter what was thrown at her.
However, in just a few short minutes, her hasty flight from Mayfair to the north was not looking like the most prudent course of action. She had quite forgotten Bella was nursing a hero back to health. Clarissa still missed her sister dreadfully, and usually took great interest in the chatty, weekly letters Bella sent her. The letters she pretended she was far too busy to read. The same letters Clarissa laboriously read alone in her bedchamber, smiled over yet never replied to. Their mother’s letters kept Bella up to speed with all Clarissa’s news, assuming her eldest daughter was too busy or flighty to bother with such things, and out of pride she never corrected that false assumption because she had worked very hard to achieve it.
Whilst it wasn’t the same as having Bella in London, those triangulated missives still felt like a conversation of sorts and reinforced their sisterly bond. But events in Clarissa’s own life had rocked her to her core and quite overshadowed everything else, leaving her floundering and feeling so dreadfully alone and