‘What? Your nose? I like it very well as it is,’ he replied with an infuriating grin.
‘How flattering. But unfortunately your opinion of myself and my features is a matter of indifference to me. Confine yourself to your sister’s affairs,’ she informed him with frigid dignity.
‘She doesn’t have any,’ he informed her unrepentantly.
‘Something most brothers would be profoundly grateful for.’
‘I knew you hadn’t really become missish in your old age, Lady Summerton,’ he said, with every appearance of satisfaction.
Recognising his tactic of infuriating her to the point of indiscretion, she took a very deep breath and counted to ten. ‘Either stick to the subject in hand, Sir Adam, or I’ll drop my basket on your toe,’ she informed him coolly.
‘It’s really is most ungallant of me not to be carrying it in the first place. Whatever will Mrs Burgess say?’
‘I don’t care a straw what the wretched woman says. Give it back,’ she demanded, as he whisked the offending article out of her hand and put it on the grass at his side.
‘No. Now, stop distracting me and stick to our sheep,’ he goaded her, that wicked, compelling smile warming his gaze once more.
‘Pot calling kettle black, Sir Adam? You’re the one whose attention keeps wandering from the subject under discussion.’
‘With very good reason,’ he said with apparent satisfaction as his gaze dwelt on her animated face.
‘For no reason at all, so far as I can see,’ she countered smartly. Only to be confounded as he raised his eyebrows and gave her another of those warmly approving looks.
‘No,’ he replied softly, ‘I dare say you can’t.’
‘Oh, pray stop treating me like an idiot, and tell me how you plan to get Rachel to change her mind about marriage?’ she demanded impatiently.
Wrongfoot her and charm her as he would, she refused to succumb to the potent spell of a tall and handsome gentleman blessed with a wicked sense of humour and a very astute mind. Then there was his strength and integrity—qualities that would outlive mere bodily vigour, she reminded herself distractedly.
‘Very well, then, I shall take her to town—suitably chaperoned, of course.’
As his intent gaze fixed on her, Serena could hardly mistake the chaperon he had in mind. So that was why he had been conspiring to get her alone for so long. It was all she could do not to stamp her feet and fall into strong hysterics. All this time she had avoided him and he wanted her to chaperon his sister! She was delighted not to have to refuse a discreet affair between two untrammelled adults, of course, and need no longer call on Rachel when he was out. Except if he had his way she wouldn’t need to call on Rachel. She would be living with her.
Chapter Two
Serena had decided years ago that not even Sir Charles Grandison and brave young Lochinvar rolled into one dashingly perfect gentleman could persuade her to marry again. Not that Sir Adam had marriage in mind. No, even if he had been attempting to get her alone, he had a very different proposition to make her. Anyway, although he looked like a hero, Sir Adam Langthorne would probably tell a damsel in distress to pull herself together and fight her own dragons before he rode to her rescue. For some reason that sounded a wickedly tempting combination in a suitor, so it was just as well he had no intention of courting her.
‘That chaperon certainly won’t be me,’ she snapped, taken by surprise both by his determination to turn her into Rachel’s duenna and her own unwavering opposition.
Half an hour ago she might have found the idea of being removed from her monotonous routine and a distinctly unpromising future alluring—and in Rachel’s company as well. So why was she about to refuse such an escape from her responsibilities?
‘I should wait to be asked if I were you, my lady,’ he reproved, that infuriating smile once again making her palm itch to slap it off his lips.
‘I still won’t do it,’ she insisted implacably.
‘Well, that settles that, then,’ he said. And if he was trying to appear cast down he was failing dismally.
The wretched man was confident of getting his way; she could see it by the unwavering determination of his firm mouth and his golden-brown eyes had a glint in them she deeply mistrusted.
‘Unlucky Rachel, to possess such a fair weather friend,’ he said mournfully, and this time her wrist actually swung out before she sharply ordered it back to her side, and glared at him with infuriated ferocity instead.
‘We have no need to prove our friendship, sir, so I suggest you save your tricks for those who might be taken in by them,’ she told him, with a glare that should tell him she was too polite to say what she really felt about his stubborn aim of getting his own way, whatever the consequences.
‘If I ever find another lady so perfectly suited to bear my sister company I shall seek your advice,’ he said blandly, and she could see no lessening of his iron resolve whatsoever. ‘I’m determined to turn her thoughts into more hopeful channels, and she trusts you, my lady,’ he insisted relentlessly. ‘Rachel won’t put her confidence in a stranger.’
‘Perhaps, but she needs someone older to reintroduce her to the ton,’ she countered.
‘Indeed,’ he agreed meekly. ‘But such a hardened cynic might misjudge my sister and try to shuffle her onto someone rich and titled but totally unsuitable in every other way, don’t you think? While Rachel’s capable of fending off such an insensitive soul herself, it would probably ruin her stay, and you would let her pick out her own suitors.’
‘Rachel’s chaperon will be in for a surprise if you let her expect meek agreement with her every whim,’ Serena persisted.
‘No, she won’t. You know her too well for that.’ He held up his hand when she gathered breath to condemn his high-handed assumption that she would agree to his scheme. ‘I don’t want Rachel to be upset by battling over every detail from the cut and colour of her gown to how many steps she can take in the park with a beau without causing a scandal. Together you can both ease yourselves back into the polite world and actually enjoy yourselves,’ he replied, so reasonably that Serena had to remind herself she was in danger of being manipulated by a master.
‘I refuse to tell my best friend how to run her life,’ she said doggedly.
‘Little chance of that—which is why this arrangement will suit so well, if I can bring it about,’ he said with a wry smile.
‘Do you always arrange the lives of your family and friends in the way you feel is most likely to do them good, Sir Adam?’
‘Whenever I can,’ he replied, with an unrepentant shrug.
‘Lord, how I pity them.’
‘Lady, you have no need to,’ he told her, and suddenly there was an infinity of promises in those intriguing eyes of his, and she felt a shiver run down her spine that had to be apprehension—didn’t it?
‘So you say,’ she managed to reply, steadily enough.
‘So I know,’ he said quietly, and this time there was a steadfast intent in his gaze that worried her more than anything that had passed between them so far.
Serena made a determined effort to put everything else aside and concentrate on Rachel’s well-being. ‘I’m not sure I could stop the staidest two-in-hand racing out of control,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘let alone keep Rachel from being overwhelmed by unsuitable gentlemen.’
Rachel Langthorne was a considerable heiress and, even if she was far too shrewd to fall for a fortune-hunter,