LITMIR.BIZ

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the very least she should be plotting stratagems to get him to confess all. But when she was with him, she found herself talking instead.

      How could she not admire a man who wasn’t afraid to share his thoughts about science and philosophy, who seemed to genuinely enjoy her company? He was a refreshing change from the gentlemen her stepmother entertained. They lived at the very surface of life, talking in generalities. Algernon’s friends were worse. To them, she was an antidote—the poor spinster to be pitied. She hadn’t realized until this morning how much she craved more.

      A salt-tanged wind was blowing in from the sea as she and Mrs. Price alighted from their carriage in front of the Dearborn house. The moist air brushed the carefully arranged curls at the sides of Meredee’s face. A tingle of excitement shot through her. A sea breeze in the evening often meant a storm was brewing. She might be able to go hunting in the morning! But before she could do more than think about what that would mean to her promise to her father, her gaze lit on the house, and all other thoughts fled.

      Most of the people who flocked to Scarborough stayed in lodging houses or inns. A few rented a house overlooking the spa. Lord Allyndale’s house was of square rosy stone, three stories tall, with fluted columns across the front that softened the imposing lines. Candlelight glowed from every multipaned window, casting shadows across the stone steps. Meredee was glad she’d worn her best evening gown, a buttercup-yellow satin, striped with bands of delicate gold embroidery from the square bodice to the narrow hem.

      Before she could take more than two steps, the front door opened, and Lady Phoebe rushed down the stairs to enfold Meredee in her arms. “Oh, you’ve come, you’ve come!”

      Meredee managed to disengage with a smile. “Well, it truly isn’t difficult to travel the half mile unscathed.”

      Lady Phoebe linked her arm with Meredee’s and drew her up the stairs and into the house, leaving Mrs. Price to pick up her amethyst-colored skirts and trail behind. The inside of the house was even more grand than the outside. The entry hall was tiled in black-and-white marble, the pale blue walls edged in white leaves and graced with landscape paintings of rolling hills and stormy skies.

      “What a lovely home,” Meredee murmured.

      “It isn’t ours,” Lady Phoebe explained, bouncing on her pink kid slippers. The girl was dressed as usual in a becoming shade of pink, her gown boasting no less than three rows of flouncing at the generous hem.

      “We didn’t even get to bring our favorite paintings or furnishings.”

      “You didn’t get to bring your favorites, you mean,” her brother corrected her, descending the graceful curving stair. “I have an aversion to living in pink.”

      Tonight he was impeccable in black, from his tailored coat to the breeches, black satin-striped waist coat, and patent shoes. The dark color made the white of his shirt and simply tied cravat blaze against his skin and the gold of his hair. He bowed over their hands, and Meredee curtsied, mouth suddenly dry.

      “We are expecting one more guest,” he said as he released her. “Allow me to escort you to the drawing room to wait.”

      Mrs. Price tittered a reply and accepted his offered arm. Meredee and Lady Phoebe fell into step behind them. The girl squeezed her arm. “I’m so glad you could join us,” she said, as if her glowing face and bright smile could have given Meredee any doubt. “I think my brother is smitten with you.”

      Meredee missed a step and nearly trod on her hem. “Oh, Lady Phoebe,” she whispered. “You mustn’t say such things.”

      “Why not?” Lady Phoebe peered over at her, suddenly serious. “Most women find my brother irresistible. Don’t you?”

      Meredee eyed his back, so imposing in the tailored coat. His hair was just long enough that wisps brushed the high collar as he walked. How could a man who was known to be so hard have such soft-looking hair? “I hardly know your brother,” she said aloud, cheeks blazing, “so I’m sure I’m in no position to say.”

      Lady Phoebe gave her arm another squeeze as they reached the drawing room. “Then perhaps you can become better acquainted.”

      “Perhaps,” Meredee answered, though she was beginning to believe that the most important thing she could do was to determine who exactly Chase Dearborn, Earl of Allyndale, was.

      Yet try as she might, she simply could not find the monster Algernon insisted on. Lord Allyndale made polite conversation with her stepmother, his face set in firm lines that said he was listening to every bit of nonsense as if to a speech on an important issue in Parliament. He gave equal attention to his sister’s meandering story about shopping for a new pair of gloves. His patience would have been endearing, if Meredee could forget the scowl he’d worn that afternoon at the spa that had made the tall youth flee as if in fear for his life.

      Had he looked at Algernon that way? Would he look at her that way if he knew she was Algernon’s stepsister?

      “Still so unhappy?” he ventured when Lady Phoebe had drawn Mrs. Price over to the spinet to show her some new sheet music. “Do you find Scarborough such a sad place, Miss Price?”

      She could not give him her thoughts. “A little,” she admitted instead. “My father brought me here every summer. I haven’t been back since he died. It doesn’t feel the same.”

      “I am sorry for your loss,” he said quietly.

      She could not stand his kindness. “I’ll see him again someday. Until then, there is much to interest me.”

      “Such as?”

      She glanced up at him. There was that look again, head cocked, blue eyes dark and serious, as if what she had to say was critical to his very existence. The look made her want to be brilliant, if only to gratify his attention. “Good company, new music, the sun on the waves.” She grinned. “And there are always the improving works of Hannah More.”

      “Or Mary Wollstonecraft,” he agreed with a matching grin.

      The butler coughed from the doorway, and everyone looked up. “Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam has arrived, ladies, my lord.”

      Meredee held her smile from long practice, but Lady Phoebe gasped as if she hadn’t seen him in years and rushed to tug him into the room. “Oh, Trevor, come meet Miss Meredee Price. She saved my life.”

      “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Price,” he said with a bow. “And this must be your lovely sister.”

      “Very nearly.” Mrs. Price beamed as she joined the group.

      “Again?” Lady Phoebe interrupted with a frown. “You said it was a pleasure to see her again. Do you know her?”

      Meredee glanced at Lord Allyndale. Surely it was his place to explain their meeting yesterday afternoon to his sister. She only wondered why he hadn’t done so sooner. The faintest of pinks tinged his cheeks, as if he’d been caught in an indiscretion. “Sir Trevor and I stopped by the Bell Inn yesterday,” he said to his sister. “Just to be certain Miss Price had not taken ill from her efforts on your behalf.”

      “But why should she take ill?” Lady Phoebe persisted. “I was the one in need of rescue.”

      “Ah,” her brother said, looking over her head, “there’s Beagan again. Dinner is apparently ready. Shall we, ladies?” He offered his arm to Meredee. Her surprise must have shown on her face, for he smiled. “You are the guest of honor, are you not? The savior of Scarborough Bay, I believe I heard.”

      “Nothing of the sort,” Meredee said, wishing Mrs. Murdock had never coined the phrase. But she set her hand on his arm nonetheless and was surprised to feel a tension matching her own. What could possibly have discomposed the earl? Had he come to the inn for some other purpose?

      “And I am the lucky one,” Sir Trevor said, offering one arm to Lady Phoebe and the other to Mrs. Price. “I have the pleasure of escorting two beauties to dinner.”

      Phoebe’s

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