Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride. Joanna MaitlandЧитать онлайн книгу.
from his lolling tongue.
The Earl forced his way through the hedge just where the dog had broken through. He took the situation in and snapped his fingers. ‘Heel, I say! Heel!’
To Helen, it looked as though the dog sighed and shrugged its shoulders before obediently dropping to the ground and loping across to his master’s side, where he flopped to the ground and rolled on his back, paws waving in the air.
‘I am not going to rub your stomach, you hell hound!’ the Earl snapped.
The dog merely looked up at him adoringly and wriggled encouragingly.
Helen, already struck by the humour of the situation, could barely stifle her giggles. She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, covering her grin under the pretext of vigorously wiping away the slobber that coated her cheeks.
‘Really, Bridgemere,’ said Lady Thrapston, emerging from behind Helen. ‘Have you no control over that animal?’
‘Better than you have over your own manners,’ he replied coldly. ‘You have a very carrying sort of voice, My Lady, and I beg leave to inform you that you have no business berating Miss Forrest upon her future plans. Plans which, in any case, I regard as admirable!’
‘Excuse me…’ Helen put in, suddenly cross all over again. Though it was quite pleasant to hear the Earl say that he found her admirable, she was not in the least bit pleased that he was saying what she would have said herself, had the dog not put a halt to proceedings.
The Earl made an impatient gesture with his hand.
‘Not now, Miss Forrest!’ he snapped, his eyes fixed upon his sister. ‘I find it remarkably refreshing to hear that there is at least one woman in England who does not have marriage to a wealthy man as her goal after having been launched expensively into society!’
At that point Helen’s temper came to the boil. It was beyond rude for these two aristocrats to stand there arguing about her as though she was not present. Besides, it was perfectly clear they were not arguing about her at all, but about what Lady Thrapston expected Bridgemere to do for her daughters.
Who were both close to tears.
‘Don’t you assume you know anything about me or my goals, My Lord!’ she said. ‘It is only women with a dowry and a family behind them who have the luxury of taking the route of which you speak! And, since I have not a penny to my name, I should have thought it would be obvious even to you that route is not open to me!’
‘You see?’ said the Countess. ‘Even this creature would rather marry than work for a living! You have heard it from her own lips!’
The Earl swung to her, his eyes blazing, as though he felt she had betrayed him.
Not a penny to her name? What nonsense was this? From the preliminary enquiries he had made, it was generally known that she stood to inherit a substantial fortune from Isabella Forrest. Who was already keeping her in some style.
‘N…no, I did not mean that, exactly…’ Helen stammered, her eyes flicking from brother to sister and back again.
‘Come, girls,’ said Lady Thrapston imperiously. ‘We shall return to the house, since His Lordship chooses to exercise that beast where his guests should feel safe to walk!’
Her nose in the air, she swished across the lawns, her two subdued daughters scurrying along behind her.
The dog rolled itself upright and woofed once after them, as though in triumph.
Helen stood frozen to the spot by Lord Bridgemere’s glacial stare. He waited until the other ladies were out of earshot before speaking again, while Helen braced herself for yet another battle royal.
‘I trust you are unharmed?’ he said, completely taking the wind out of her sails. ‘For some reason,’ he drawled, as though there was no accounting for the working of a dog’s mind, ‘Esau regards you as a friend. The moment he heard your voice he made straight for you to make his presence known.’
‘Straight, yes,’ she agreed. ‘Straight through the hedge,’ she amended, a bubble of mirth welling up inside her as she recalled the consternation he had caused. Then with a perfectly straight face she reached up and plucked a yew twig from the front of Lord Bridgemere’s waistcoat. ‘And you came straight after him,’ she observed, tossing the twig to the ground.
‘He frightens some females,’ he countered. ‘He is so large and…’
‘So sadly out of control.’ She shook her head in mock reproof.
His brows drew down into a scowl. ‘No, that is not the case at all. He is very well trained…’
Abruptly she averted her face, as though glancing towards the dog, who was now sniffing away at the foot of the hedge. But not quite quickly enough to hide the laughter brimming.
He caught at her chin and turned her face towards him, studying it in perplexity. Then suddenly comprehension dawned.
‘You…you are teasing me!’
For a moment she felt as though her fate hung in the balance. It was the height of impertinence for one of her station to treat a man of his rank with such lack of respect.
But then he smiled.
Really smiled—as though she had just handed him some immensely rare and unexpected gift.
Her stomach swooped and soared—just as it had done when, as a little girl, she had taken a turn on her garden swing.
She had thought him attractive, in a dangerous sort of way, when she had believed he was merely a footman. Had imagined maidservants queuing up to kiss that mouth when it had been hard and cynical. But the intensity of that smile was downright lethal. As she gazed, transfixed, at those happily curved lips, with his hand still cupping her chin gently, she wished that he would pull her closer, slant that mouth across her own…
With a gasp, she pulled away from him.
His smile faded. He looked down at the hand that had been cupping her chin as though its behaviour confused him.
‘E…Esau?’ she stammered, determined to break the intensity of the mood. ‘You called him that because he is so hairy, I take it?’
‘And he has a somewhat reddish tinge to his coat,’ he agreed mechanically. Then, as though searching for something to say to prolong their odd little conversation, ‘Under the mud which unfortunately he chose to roll in this morning.’ He looked down at her attire ruefully. ‘And which is now liberally smeared all over your coat.’
For the first time Helen took stock of the damage the encounter with his dog had wrought upon her clothing. Helen had wrapped a shawl over her bonnet before setting out. It had slithered to the ground when Esau had jumped up, and the other ladies had trodden it into the ground. Her gloves and cuffs were shiny with the aftermath of Esau’s affectionate greeting, and her shoulders bore the imprints of his enormous muddy paws. And, worst of all, when he had dropped to the ground his claws had torn a rent in her skirt.
‘You must allow me to replace it.’
‘Must?’ Taking exception to his high-handed attitude towards her, she took a step back. ‘I must do no such thing!’
‘Do not be ridiculous,’ he snapped, his own brief foray into good humour coming to an abrupt end. ‘I saw the way my sister used you as a human shield to protect her own clothing from Esau’s unfortunate tendency to jump up on people he likes. And she can easily afford to replace any gowns his paws might ruin. I suspect that you cannot. I have just heard you declare you have not a penny to your name! And I doubt if you have more than two changes of clothing in that meagre amount of luggage my staff carried up to your room.’
Helen stiffened further. ‘Mud brushes off when it dries. And I am quite capable of darning this little tear,’ she said, indicating her skirts. ‘Any competent needlewoman could do it!