LITMIR.BIZ

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it. The chit looked suitable for helping overcome Perry’s awkwardness—there was a sweet expression on her face and an air of modest shyness about her that was appealing. She would gaze at Perry as though he were wonderful and not make him feel threatened.

      Adam took his cousin firmly by the elbow and began to make his way through the dinner guests, only for them to be hailed imperiously by his Aunt Minster.

      ‘There you are, Peregrine. Stop gossiping to Adam about shooting or horses or whatever you are doing and come and talk to the admiral.’ She detached Perry from his grip, hooked her own hand through his arm and carried on in the direction she had been heading.

      Deprived of his companion, Adam carried on to Olivia’s side. She bobbed a curtsy. ‘My lord.’ Her voice was soft and slightly breathless and she regarded him with wide eyes.

      Too young, too spiritless and far too short, Adam thought, his mind suddenly full of a tall, unconventional lady a good eight or nine years older than this child. And her mama should never have dressed Olivia in that daring style with such low-set sleeves. It was more suited to a married woman. Then his natural kindness took over and he set himself to charm her out of the worst of her nerves.

      She certainly opened up a little in the interval before dinner was announced, although Adam once again had the uneasy feeling that she was constantly looking behind him at someone or something. As he took her arm to take her to find her dinner partner, he glanced back and recognised her parents. They seemed to be keeping a very close eye on her, although, with her seeming so nervous, perhaps that was only to be expected.

      Dinner was as boring as he expected, trapped between an aunt who twittered and a matron who showed a disconcerting inclination to flirt with him. Adam was aware of drinking steadily and of an overwhelming desire to escape as soon as the covers were drawn. What he wanted was an unconventional lady to talk to, to tease, to—

      ‘Grantham!’

      He looked up, startled out of his reverie.

      ‘You are chased,’ his uncle said sternly and he found that, indeed, the decanters were at his elbow. With a careless hand he filled his glass and pushed them on down the table.

      When the gentlemen made their way through to the ballroom he looked around for escape. Good, the conservatory looked like a shaded haven of palms, comfortable seating and solitude. It was too early in the evening for daring couples to seek it out for a little dalliance or for desperate wallflowers to retreat there to hide.

      Snagging a glass of champagne off a tray as the footman passed, Adam slid in through the nearest door and retreated as far into the leafy sanctuary as he could.

      Now, at last, he could sit and think in peace about what he was going to do about Decima. A swish of skirts made him stiffen and draw back. He could glimpse a blonde head through the foliage and the sound of a bravely suppressed sob.

      Damn it. It was Olivia. Adam eased round until he could see her, head bent, applying a fragile scrap of lace to her eyes. With a sigh he reached into his pocket and found a clean handkerchief.

      ‘Olivia?’ She started dramatically and stared at him.

      ‘Oh, thank you, my lord.’ As he pressed the linen into her hand her fingers gripped his and he found himself on the seat beside her.

      ‘Olivia? What is wrong?’ Hell, what did one say to weeping girls? ‘There, there.’ He patted her shoulder, wishing he hadn’t had quite so much to drink and could think about what to do for the best. Fetch her mama? She gave a gasping sob and the next thing he knew he had an armful of quivering young lady.

      Instinct took over and Adam gathered her into a comforting embrace, only to find that her gown appeared to have a life of its own and was sliding off her shoulders. Under his palms he could feel soft, bare, heated skin.

      ‘Olivia? You must try and…’ Her face tipped up to his, piquant with some trembling emotion he did not understand. Her lashes were spiked with tears, her soft pink lips parted. So he kissed her, a gentle, chaste kiss intended purely to comfort.

      ‘My lord!’

      ‘Adam!’

      Startled, he twisted round, instinctively sheltering Olivia in his arm. Facing him were both her parents and his Aunt Minster. And even as he stared at them he realised that Olivia was tugging at the neckline of a bodice which had fallen quite scandalously low over her pretty breasts.

      ‘Well, my lord,’ Mr Channing uttered in outraged tones, ‘just what do you think you are about?’ Beside him his wife could not quite keep the look of triumph off her face.

      Under the circumstances, what was there to say? Or even to do? He was caught by the oldest trick in the book. ‘Mr Channing.’ Adam got to his feet, keeping his body between himself and Olivia, who was frantically trying to rearrange her bodice. ‘I will do myself the honour of speaking to you tomorrow morning.’

       Chapter Twelve

      Adam refixed the interested and attentive expression on his face and made himself concentrate on what Lady Brotherton was saying. Four weeks as an engaged man was already trying his patience to the utmost, and finding himself kicking his heels waiting for Olivia to return from a shopping expedition with her cousin Sophie Brotherton was definitely not to his taste.

      ‘They are naughty girls,’ Lady Brotherton clucked indulgently. ‘But I am sure you will forgive Olivia her excitement…it is not every day a girl is shopping for her trousseau.’

      In Adam’s experience so far it seemed to be occupying Olivia’s every waking moment, which suited him very well, except when he was having to wait for her.

      ‘But you know what girls are,’ his hostess continued indulgently.

      ‘Well, I do have two sisters,’ Adam admitted.

      ‘Only the two?’ Lady Brotherton looked pitying. ‘Dear Sophie is the youngest of six.’

      ‘And all as lovely as she, I dare say,’ Adam responded, knowing what was expected of him.

      ‘To be sure, although it is boastful of me to say so. And all well married, too—I have high hopes for little Sophie.’ Lady Brotherton got to her feet. ‘Would you care to see their portrait?’

      What Adam wanted to be doing was exercising his horses in his new curricle. He smiled with every appearance of delight and followed her to the other end of the room where a group portrait hung. The breath caught in his throat and time stopped.

      Six charming versions of Sophie at various ages sat and stood, arms around each other, and at the back was a seventh girl. Head and shoulders taller than the others, a brunette with her hair scraped back into an unflattering plain style, her shoulders hunched and rounded and an expression quite lacking in any emotion. Her lids were hooded, hiding her eyes, but Adam was left with the impression of an animal, cornered and baited, retreating into its own blank misery.

      ‘Who is the seventh girl?’ he asked indifferently when he had control of his voice, knowing as he spoke what the answer would be.

      ‘Oh, that is Dessy Ross. Her mother’s first husband was some sort of connection of Lord Brotherton’s—I really cannot recall now what it was. But her brother Charlton was quite in despair about what to do with her, so we brought her out with our girls—one after the other. One tried one’s best to find her a match. Quite hopeless, of course—you might not be able to tell from the portrait, but she is impossibly tall and dreadfully freckled. And, of course, that unfortunate mouth. Sweet girl, although very quiet.’

      Lady Brotherton went back to her chair, leaving Adam staring at the portrait. No wonder Decima was so self-conscious about her height, her looks. She had been brought up thinking she was not just plain, but irredeemably ineligible as a result. Her remarks about matchmakers hit Adam like a flick from a whip; her own experience of snubs and humiliations must be deep indeed—scars on her soul.

      ‘Charlton

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