Regency Mistletoe & Marriages: A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride. Joanna MaitlandЧитать онлайн книгу.
was inside. When Isabella had eventually emerged, head high, lips pressed tightly together and a suspicious sheen in her eyes, the ten-year-old Helen had immediately felt a strong sense of kinship with her.
She had knelt down in the hall, looked the tearful Helen in the eye, and said, ‘Would you like to come home with me? I should love to have a little girl to call my own. Without—’ and she had glared darkly up at her glowering brother ‘—having to go through the horrid experience of having to marry some repulsive man to get one.’
Since the General had already made it perfectly clear he did not want to be saddled with a half-French brat, she had slipped her hand into that of the older woman.
‘If you insist on taking on my wife’s niece, on top of all the other outrageous things you have done, then you will have only yourself to blame if I cut you out of my life!’ he had bellowed.
They had not looked back. And, just before slamming the door shut on them, the last words he had uttered were, ‘That’s it! I wash my hands of you, Bella!’
As a child, General Forrest had seemed enormous to her. And, though Helen no longer had to crane her neck to look up at him, the years had added to his bulk, so that he still seemed like a very big man.
But he did not intimidate her aunt, who lifted her chin and glared straight back.
‘Needs must when the devil drives.’
‘Harrumph!’ he replied, holding out his arm for her to take.
He completely ignored Helen. She battened down her sense of affront. Not only was she going to have to inure herself to a lifetime of snubs once she became a governess, but General Forrest had never thought much of her in the first place.
Helen looked beyond the General’s bulk and saw, hovering in his shadow, the thin, anxious woman Helen dimly remembered as her real aunt.
A bored-looking man materialised at Helen’s side, led her into the dining room, and showed her to a seat about halfway along the table. She assumed he must be Sir Mortimer Hawkshaw, though he did not deign to introduce himself or attempt to make conversation. It was galling to think that even he looked down his nose at her, she reflected bitterly. Though they both occupied the lowest social position, so he could only be another of the Earl’s poor relations.
They all stood in silence behind their chairs, heads bowed, while an absurdly young clergyman said grace.
Helen could not help glancing down to the foot of the table, where an extremely haughty-looking woman who was dripping in diamonds and sapphires was taking her seat, and then turning to take her first look at her host, the head of her aunt’s extended family. The man who held her aunt’s entire future in his hands.
And felt her jaw drop.
Because, just being eased into the chair at the head of the table by the stately elderly butler who had earlier thrown open the doors to the dining room and declared dinner was served, was…
The man she had assumed from the first moment she had clapped eyes on him to be nothing more than a footman!
Chapter Three
How could he be so young?
When her aunt had spoken of her nephew, the head of her family, she had made him sound like a curmudgeonly old misanthrope of at least fifty years. Lord Bridgemere could not be a day over thirty.
And why did he not dress like an earl?
He was one of the wealthiest men in the country! She would have thought he’d be the most finely dressed man in the place. Whereas he was the most plainly, soberly attired of all the men at table. He did not so much as sport a signet ring.
Well, now she knew exactly what foreign visitors to England meant when they complained that it was hard to tell the difference between upper servants and their masters, because of the similarity of dress. Not that she was a foreigner. Just a stranger to the ways of grand houses like this.
And he did not act like an earl, either! What had he been about, carting her aunt upstairs, when there was a perfectly genuine footman on hand to perform that office? And as for loitering about on the backstairs…well, she simply could not account for it!
The Earl turned his head and looked directly at her. And she realised she was the only person still standing. And, what was more, staring at the Earl of Bridgemere with her mouth hanging open.
She sat down swiftly, her cheeks flushing hot. Oh, heavens, what must everyone think?
And what did he think? Did he find it amusing to masquerade as a servant and humiliate his guests? What an odious, unkind…If he was laughing at her, she did not care what anyone else thought of her, she would…she would…
She darted him an inimical glare. Only to find that he was talking to the lady on his left-hand side, a completely bland expression on his face, as though nothing untoward had occurred.
She felt deflated. And foolish.
But at least he had not exposed her to ridicule by any look, or word, or…
No, she groaned inwardly. She had managed to make herself look ridiculous all on her own!
Though it had been partly his fault. Why had he not introduced himself properly? Why had he let her rip up at him like that?
She tore her eyes from his and made an effort to calm herself while the real footmen bustled about with plates and tureens and chafing dishes.
Lord Bridgemere struggled to pretend that he was not painfully aware of Miss Forrest’s discomfiture. What the devil had come over him this morning that he had bowed and grinned and left her thinking he was merely one of his own servants? She had been so shocked just now, upon realising her error, that she had made a complete spectacle of herself. And no gentleman would willingly expose any lady to such public humiliation.
Though how could he have guessed she would just stand there, gaping at him like that? Or that she would then glare at him, making it obvious to all that he had somehow, at some point, offered her some form of insult? None of the other ladies of his acquaintance would ever be so transparent.
No, they all hid behind their painstakingly constructed masks. The only expression they ever showed in public was mild boredom.
He fixed his gaze on his dinner companion, his sister Lady Craddock, although his mind was very far from her interminable complaining. Instead he was remembering the way thoughts of Miss Forrest imperiously ordering him about had kept on bringing a frisson of amusement to his mind, briefly dispelling the tedium of his day. When he had discovered he had made an error of a similar nature to hers, it had struck him as so funny that he had wanted to prolong the joke. He had even pencilled her name into his diary to remind himself, as if he needed any reminder, to make his way down to his study at precisely the same time he had run into her that morning in the hopes of encountering her again.
Extraordinary.
Most people would say he had no sense of humour whatever.
But they might, with some justification, accuse him of wishing to revel in the novel experience of having a woman react to him as just a man, and not as the Earl of Bridgemere. The wealthy, eligible Earl of Bridgemere. And it had been a novel experience. Miss Forrest had not simpered and flattered. No, she had roundly berated him, her dark eyes flashing fire.
He had thought then what an expressive face she had. He had been able to see exactly what she was thinking. Not that he’d needed to guess. She had already been telling him!
Somewhere inside he felt the ghost of a smile trying to break free. Naturally he stifled it, swiftly. It would not do to smile whilst engaged in conversation with either of his sisters. The slightest outward sign that he might be interested in anything either of them had to say would rouse the other to a pitch of jealousy that would make the entire company so uncomfortable they would all be running for cover.
Even now, though, he could tell exactly what emotions