‘Ten years is no trifling term, ma’am.’
‘It is when we barely knew each other even then and have not seen each other to speak to since my eldest sister’s wedding to your cousin nine years ago.’
‘Then we can look forward to improving our friendship, can we not? Especially as we’re to be such close neighbours.’
‘I hope you don’t expect me to be overcome with delight at the prospect,’ she muttered just loudly enough for him to hear her, then fixed a false, social smile and hoped he knew how much she’d love to slap him. ‘So we are,’ she said aloud with a forced lightness he’d be a fool to mistake for cordiality. ‘Pray, how long do I have to remove myself from here, sir, or do you wish me to decamp tonight?’
‘I would never be so hardhearted, Miss Courland, despite the fact you obviously think me capable of any crime short of murder.’ He gazed at her through the increasing gloom and she saw his eyebrows rise in apparent amusement, the infuriating devil! ‘Ah,’ he went on, the laughter she’d once listened for so eagerly running through his deep voice in a warm invitation to share his amusement, ‘so you don’t set even that limit on my villainy.’
‘Of course I do,’ she spluttered as the good manners everyone had tried so hard to drum into her made a weak attempt to control her temper and, she had to admit it to herself, her pain. ‘I can tell you’re not a monster.’
‘Can you, my dear Miss Courland? I doubt it, but take as long as you like to gather your new household about you, and take what you want with you, so long as you leave me some furniture and a bed to sleep in.’
‘I’ll take no more than is mine,’ she informed him haughtily, seething at his apparent belief that she’d strip the house to its bare bones in some vulgar attempt at revenge.
‘And have the neighbourhood accuse me of turning you out with not much more than the clothes on your back? That really wouldn’t do my credit any good in the district, now would it? I claim the privilege of changing my mind and will return tomorrow to make sure you don’t distort my good intentions into infamy, Miss Courland, and leave with little more than the clothes you stand up in. I’d be a scandal and a hissing in the area if I turned you out with such apparent cruelty.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said impatiently, imagining the effect his looks and wealth would have on the local ladies. ‘Do as you please, sir, and, as this is your house, I certainly can’t stop you coming and going as you please.’
‘You can so long as you persist in not employing a chaperone.’
‘Whatever follies I choose to commit are mine, Sir Charles, and have nothing to do with you.’
‘They do when you make yourself extraordinary by them. You’re the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Miss Courland, and while you might have run rings round him however early he got up in the morning, I’m no easygoing David Courland in search of a quiet life.’
‘That’s self-evident,’ she told him darkly, those good manners she’d congratulated herself on threatening to slip away if she yielded to temptation and punched him on his patrician nose as she longed to do.
‘Good, then, as we’ve established I’m certainly not your brother, hadn’t we better consider how we’re to remedy your chaperone-less state?’
‘No, we had not. If I’m to be saddled with one, I’ll select her myself. Indeed, it would be highly improper for a man like you to select a duenna for a single lady.’
‘True,’ he said without noticeable shame, ‘but I do have the odd female relative, you know. And one or two respectable friends who’ve yet to cast me off, who have ladies to lend their aid if I explain your situation.’
‘You do surprise me, sir.’
‘I always endeavour to confound expectations, ma’am, especially when they’re so very low.’
‘I’m quite sure you do, but pray don’t put yourself to the trouble of disproving mine. I look forward to us seeing very little of one another once I’ve packed up and left Hollowhurst for good. You’ll be far too busy managing such a large estate to worry about socialising with your neighbours for a while, and I intend to travel, so I dare say we’ll hardly ever meet. My brother isn’t the only member of our family possessed of itchy feet,’ she lied.
Chapter Three
In fact, Roxanne would have been content to continue at Hollowhurst for the rest of her life if fate had only allowed it, but she needed an excuse to avoid the new owner of her beloved home in the months to come. Travelling would do as well as any other plan, and was far better than staying and risking being charmed out of her fury by the very man who’d just deprived her of useful occupation.
‘But I hope you don’t plan to set out just yet, and certainly not alone?’
‘That, sir, is my business.’
‘In so far as you are of age I suppose that’s true, but David asked me to look to your welfare and happiness in his absence and I warn you that I fully intend to do so. I suspect we’re both about to discover that there’s no stricter mentor for a lady of quality than a reformed rake, Miss Courland.’
‘Then you’re reformed, are you, Sir Charles? I can’t claim to have seen any indication of it so far.’
‘You may not think so, ma’am, but you’ve enjoyed the fruits of my good intention ever since I walked in and found you communing with the twilight.’
‘I have? How fortunate for me.’
‘Fortunate indeed,’ he returned blandly and even through the gloom she’d be an idiot to mistake the wolfish glint in his eyes for anything but what it was and feel unease, despite her determination not to let him fluster or intimidate her.
‘Then perhaps you’d take yourself back to wherever you came from for the night, Sir Charles, since it would be such a shame to spoil it all now.’
‘Yet something tells me you’re truly wild at heart. Do you secretly prefer recklessly courting danger to pretending respectability, Miss Courland?’
‘Don’t presume to know me,’ she snapped back, much tried and confused by her own reactions to the veiled threat in his husky voice.
She’d got over the idea that Charles Afforde was put on this earth to be her destined mate many years ago. He was a dangerous rake and, despite his undoubted heroism in battle, she doubted he made a single move on land without calculating its effect. Why, then, was her silly heart racing with excitement like some mad moth sighting a brilliant light and speeding towards it, eager for its own destruction? She was woman enough to know he’d just introduced his sensual appetites and experience into this shadowy encounter, but she was old and wise enough not to call his bluff now, wasn’t she?
‘Then discovering your secrets will add spice to the game, my dear,’ he mused, almost as if he was talking to himself; suddenly he was very close.
It was so dark now she could only gauge his intentions by the tension in his silence and a hint of something new and unsettling in the outline of his powerful body. Then he lowered his head and captured her lips with his and only that contact sparked between them like lightning, but such a contact that she felt half-scorched and half-terrified. She was free, she told herself with little effect; she could disengage from the searing touch of mouth on mouth and be in sight of sanity in a mere breath. Yet the clamour of emotions and curiosity that took over her reeling senses wouldn’t let her move.
His mouth was surprisingly soft on hers; deliberately unthreatening, a cynical voice informed her sternly, but she blocked her inner ear to it. The sensual reality of Charles Afforde’s kiss on her eager lips at last overcame her defences with no effort at all and she felt him deepen the pressure of his kiss with such a warm welcome,