Carolina Love Song
Page 16
Penelope reined in her sudden impatience. “Did the gentleman have a name? And what did he want?” Why did she care?
“Papa was the one who checked him in, so I don’t know his name. You know how Papa can be about guests’ privacy. But I was the one the man asked about Lord Maitland when I brought his breakfast in this morning. He said he had ‘personal business’ with the baron.”
“Well, that certainly counts Mama and me out,” Penelope said cheerfully even as a strange combination of relief and disappointment settled on her chest.
She stiffened. Disappointment? What was the matter with her? Hadn’t she learned long ago not to hope for anything from her aristocratic, pompous relatives or her equally self-important fiancé? Their social class gave them a bloated sense of entitlement, making them consistently disregard anyone whom they deemed to be useless.
She suspiciously eyed the now empty plate before her on the scarred oak table. Perhaps the apple and blackberry pie wasn’t so awesome after all. Perhaps the pie had somehow muddled her mind, for the most trifling matters agitated her. She’d heard that sort of thing happened by eating too many sweets.
“It could have something to do with your beloved earl! Oh, Polly, what if your white knight has come at last?” Mari clasped her hands together, her pretty face alight with excitement. “It’s so romantic! Just imagine — a chivalrous knight in shining armor, riding his glorious steed to rescue his fair maiden.”
“Why would I want to marry a medieval knight?” she scoffed. “You forget those ‘heroic’ knights were paid to be ambitious murderers, and I’ll wager they also carried the scent of the Middle Ages.”
Mari’s look of dismay made her laugh heartily.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she continued, still chuckling, “I can assure you my ‘beloved earl’ has long since forgotten about me.”
She gave Nelson one final pat on the head before rising to leave when a captivatingly deep, curt, male voice addressed her from the staircase behind them.
“I wouldn’t be too quick with giving assurances, if I were you, Miss Maitland.”
Penelope and Mari whirled in unison toward the staircase where an imposingly huge, well-dressed man loomed.
“And who, pray tell, are you?” Penelope demanded, refusing to be cowed by such a haughty individual. She placed her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s considered ill mannered to eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations?” Somehow, she managed to crane her neck, look the man straight in the eye, and ignore Mari’s horrified gasp.
The tall, black-haired beast of a man stalked to her and Mari with a purpose that lent deadly grace to his soundless footsteps. Ill-concealed interest and amusement glittered in his midnight-dark eyes as his bold gaze raked her insolently from the top of her bonneted head to the tips of her well worn half-boots, then travelled back up to meet her eyes.
“Didn’t anyone tell you it’s considered ill mannered to talk about one’s fiancé with so little respect?” the arrogant man said in a gentle, chiding tone that, if Penelope hadn’t known how deliberately unpleasant she’d just been to him, she would have thought the stranger was actually flirting with her.
She stole a glance at Mari to gauge her reaction. Her friend had always known more about men because unlike her, Mari had a nicely trimmed form and a face of classic beauty.
At the moment, however, Mari seemed unable to do anything but stand there, gawking nervously.
Penelope had a sudden, sinking feeling of foreboding in the pit of her stomach as she dragged her eyes to meet the giant’s dark, steady gaze. “Who are you, sir?” she asked again in the barest of whispers.
Please, God, let me be wrong, she silently prayed.
In answer, the immaculately dressed gentleman bowed in one swift, smooth motion, then grabbed her bare hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles.
At the touch of his lips on her skin, Penelope felt a disturbing, unwanted tingling sensation all the way up her arm that made her heart pound while a strange — if late — warning rang inside her head like distant church bells and … the man refused to let go of her hand! She must’ve tried to tug her hand free from his iron grip at least three times by now.
“I am delighted to finally meet you, Penelope,” the stranger murmured in an inappropriately intimate voice, a smile tugging at his lips. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucas Arthur Phillip Drake. And I, my dear, am your ‘beloved earl.’”
Penelope paled. A ghost from the past had come back to haunt her.
And she was in big trouble.
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street
Avon, MA 02322
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 1966 by Peggy Gaddis
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7420-0
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7420-7
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7419-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7419-1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © istock.com/Ridofranz
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