Tall, Dark... Collection. Carole MortimerЧитать онлайн книгу.
was intelligence as well as arrogance in that wide brow, though the precise colour of his eyes was something of a mystery as he viewed his surroundings with unmistakable disdain, looking down his nose at the scene before him. The sculptured mouth had narrowed, and dark brows were rising in haughty surprise as he turned to see his hostess hurriedly descending the steps towards him, rather than waiting inside Markham Park for him to be formally announced.
‘Your Grace!’ Lady Sulby swept him a low curtsey and received a haughtily measured inclination of that arrogant head in return. ‘Such an honour,’ she fluttered. ‘I—But where is your brother, Lord St Claire, Your Grace?’ Lady Sulby’s voice had sharpened to an unbecoming shrill as she realised there was no one else inside the Duke’s carriage.
Jane could not discern the Duke’s reply—could only hear the deep rumble of his voice as he obviously made his hostess some sort of explanation for his solitary state.
Oh, dear. Everything did not appear to be going to plan. Lady Sulby’s plan, that was. And an already thwarted Lady Sulby was not to be displeased further by the delay of the delivery of the shawl she had requested Jane to bring to her almost ten minutes ago.
Jane moved quickly down the hallway to Olivia’s room to collect the parasol before hurrying to the wide staircase with the required items, aware of the rumble of voices below as Sir Barnaby engaged his guest in conversation.
Lady Sulby had previously expressed high hopes of Olivia making a favourable impression on the Duke’s youngest brother, Lord Sebastian St Claire, and now that the young lord had failed to arrive Lady Sulby would no doubt be in one of the spiteful moods that usually had the servants running downstairs to the sanctuary of the kitchen at the first opportunity. Jane knew she wouldn’t be allowed the same privilege until after she had helped Olivia change into her dress for dinner and styled her hair.
When the family were at home Jane was usually allowed to dine with them in the evenings, but Lady Sulby had informed her only that morning that once their guests had arrived she would be expected to take her meals downstairs with the other servants.
Which would not be any hardship at all, when Jane considered the few dresses she had in her wardrobe. None of them was in the least suitable for dining with a duke, she acknowledged ruefully as she hurried to the staircase. And if she could deliver the shawl and parasol while the Duke still engaged the attention of his host and hostess, then she would perhaps manage to avoid the rebuke Lady Sulby was otherwise sure to make concerning her tardiness.
Jane could never afterwards explain how it happened. Why it happened. She was only aware that the staircase was no longer firm beneath her slippered feet, and that instead of hurrying down the staircase she instead found herself tumbling forwards.
Or at least she would have tumbled if a pair of strong hands hadn’t reached out and grasped her upper arms to halt her.
She found herself instead falling forward into a hard, immovable object. A man’s chest, Jane quickly realised, as she found her nose buried in the delicate folds of an impeccably tied, pristinely white necktie, her senses at once assailed by the smell of cologne and clean male flesh, both mingling with the faint smell of a cigar.
The Duke of Stourbridge’s clean, male chest. The Duke of Stourbridge’s perfectly tied cravat too, Jane discovered seconds later, as she struggled to right herself and looked up into that aristocratically austere face and discovered that his eyes—those eyes whose colour she had been unable to discern earlier, as she had looked down at him from the window of Lady Sulby’s bedroom—were of the strangest, most intense shade of gold. Not brown, not hazel, but pure, piercing gold, rimmed with a much darker brown that somehow gave him the appearance of a large bird of prey. The mesmerising appearance of a large, dangerous bird of prey…
Hawk’s mouth tightened at the unexpectedness of this physical assault. Having spent the last two days confined to his carriage, the comfort of which had nevertheless not been enough to prevent him from being rocked and bumped about on the sadly uneven roads, he wished only to be shown to his rooms and provided with hot water for a bath before he had to present himself downstairs, in order that he might be introduced to his fellow guests before they dined.
The hostelries at which he had dined along the way, and the inn he had had perforce to stop at the previous night, had been far beneath his usual exacting standard. And minutes ago his hostess, until then a woman totally unknown to him, had shown such want of breeding as to almost accost him as he alighted from his carriage.
Hawk had reflected long and hard as to the advisability of coming to Markham Park at all during the two days preceding his departure from London, as well as during the long, interminable hours it had taken to arrive here, and this latest incident of having one of the Sulby household servants actually throw herself into his arms only served to prove how correct had been his misgivings.
‘I am so sorry, Your Grace.’ The maid’s voice was slightly breathless, her expression stricken as she glanced warily down into the hallway, where Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby could still be seen and heard engaged in conversation with Lord and Lady Tillton. The other couple had arrived with their son Simon just as Hawk was being taken up to view his suite of rooms by the footman, who had now fallen discreetly back from this unexpected exchange.
Hawk’s gaze narrowed and his mouth tightened as he detected a look of apprehension in the shadowed green eyes the maid turned back to him. He certainly wasn’t accustomed to having anyone, least of all a servant, accost him in this way, but he realised now that the girl must have tripped—that as he had ascended the stairs he had merely been standing in the way of her tumbling unchecked to the hallway below. Certainly there was no need for her to look quite so apprehensive on his account.
Although that glance down at Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby seemed to imply that it was not his own displeasure this young girl feared…
Hawk’s mouth thinned even more at the realisation. He had always found Sir Barnaby to be a pleasant, even jovial companion on the few occasions they had dined together, so he could only assume that it was from Lady Sulby that the maid feared retribution for her ill-timed actions.
‘I really am sorry, Your Grace.’The young girl moved to pick something up from the stairs that she seemed to have dropped when they collided. ‘I— Oh, I am so sorry, Your Grace!’ The girl gasped her dismay as she poked him in the stomach with the parasol she had just retrieved from the stair.
Hawk drew in a sharp breath at this second unexpected attack, and wondered incredulously if the last few minutes were going to be indicative of this week’s stay in what he had discovered on the drive here was indeed a flat, uninteresting fenland, with little to recommend it.
Including the delivery of letters. His own missive explaining that his brother Sebastian would be unable to attend after all had clearly not arrived, resulting in Hawk having to make Sebastian’s excuses verbally to his host and hostess.
In light of the ill-bred behaviour of Lady Sulby on his arrival, and the fact that Olivia Sulby, when introduced, had all the indications of being exactly the type of simpering miss Hawk found irritatingly exhausting, he could not help but frown as he wondered if perhaps Sebastian had been privy to some insight about the Sulby household that he had not.
Jane gave an inward groan as she saw the visible signs of the Duke’s displeasure, sure that such an illustrious person was completely unaccustomed to being physically accosted in this way.
Not only had she almost knocked him down the stairs, but now she had actually poked him in that flat, manly stomach with a parasol.
None of which Lady Sulby or Olivia seemed to have witnessed, thank goodness, as they still conversed with the Tilltons in the hallway below. But it could only be a matter of time before one or both of them looked up and became aware of the debacle taking place on the staircase above them.
Jane gave the patiently waiting footman a desperate look of pleading as he stood silent witness to the encounter—although she had to look hastily away again when she thought she detected a glint of laughter in John’s otherwise deadpan expression.
‘If you