LITMIR.BIZ

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Asher, as is your proclivity to exaggerate.’

      ‘You would say it is all a lie, then?’

      Taris was careful in his reply. ‘I would say that I am nearing thirty-two, Ashe, and have no need to answer to anyone but myself.’

      His brother laughed. ‘Ahh, that is what they all say, Taris, before they fall.’

      ‘Implying…?’

      ‘It would take a braver fellow than myself to explain it to you.’

      ‘Then don’t.’

      Silence ruled for a moment until Asher spoke again.

      ‘Your lady has been conversing with the Duchess of Castleton for a significant time, and if Anna Bellhaven deigns to give anyone an audience for more than a minute it is generally a highly regarded stamp of approval.’

      ‘The plan is a success, then?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘In that case I shall leave for Kent in the next day or two.’

      ‘Perhaps you might take her with you?’

      ‘The Duchess of Castleton? Why on earth would I wish to do that?’ His deliberate misconception had his brother slapping him across the shoulder.

      ‘One day soon, Taris, you will wake up with a ring on your finger and a brood of children and the knowledge that you are in the only place that you want to be.’

      ‘Mrs Bassingstoke is a barren widow. Hard to raise a brood given that fact.’

      The peal of deep laughter was distinctly unsettling and he just wished that Bea might return to stand beside him and make everything simple.

      Beatrice watched Taris Wellingham from her place beside the Duchess of Castleton and the Duchess of Carisbrook.

      His left hand splayed across the smooth marble on the pillar and his right held the cane. Tonight he did not wear his glasses and a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead, highlighting the amber in his eyes.

      Rakish. Dashing. A man who had absolutely no idea of how appealing he looked! But it wasn’t only his body that she found attractive. No, she loved the depth and breadth of his mind, with his wide-ranging opinions on anything and everything.

      She wondered what his library looked like. What books he read? What had formed his ideas when he was young? She also wondered how a man raised as an aristocrat could consider other less popular ideas that encompassed a change in the perception of how society would be moulded over the next hundred years.

      When the dancing began she hoped that he might ask her again. But of course he could not, given the excuse she had dredged up for Lady Arabella Fisher only a few minutes prior. She smiled, thinking it ironic that by helping him she had denied herself the chance to be once again in Taris Wellingham’s arms.

      The carriage ride home was full of Emerald’s chatter with her husband adding his say on the highlights of the evening. Taris remained silent, lost in his own thoughts, Bea imagined, though when they reached her town house he got to his feet and helped her down the two small steps.

      ‘I am certain that Lucy’s indiscreet chatter will have been put to rest.’ The wind snatched away his words even as he turned against its force, inadvertently shielding her reply from the ears of the others.

      ‘Thank you for making certain that my reputation remained safe.’ Bea could not think of even one other thing to utter. Her reputation? Last night’s loving lay between them like an unspoken shout.

       ‘Come in. Hold me. Lie down beside me and show me heaven. Again.’

      Not quite what one could say to a man who looked almost desperate to be gone, and a plethora of other transports wending their way home behind him, the occupants craning their necks to watch the antics around the Wellingham conveyance.

      Manners. Protocol. Exemplars and precedents. The world here was full of what was expected and what was acceptable and walking into the private residence on the arms of even a plain-looking widow in the wee hours of the morning was patently not one of these things.

      ‘Goodbye.’ His farewell contained no notion of intimacy, though he waited as two of her servants came to escort her in.

      When she reached her front door and looked back she saw that the horses had already been called to walk on.

       Chapter Eleven

      ‘’Tis only a hand cream that I have a need of, Elspeth. I should not wish to take up too much of your time.’

      ‘Oh, Beatrice, it is lovely just to be walking on such a fine day. Besides, we promised ourselves an outing at the new tea shop last time we ventured out this way.’

      Bea laughed. She felt surprisingly relaxed after the party last night at the Cannons’. Perhaps she had come to terms with the fact that at least in friendship she would be able to see Taris Wellingham; besides, there was little use dwelling on the sort of happy endings that she knew, for her at least, would never come to pass.

      ‘Shall we go to the apothecary first and then—?’

      Her words were snatched into a scream as a heavy shape from behind connected with the small of her back and pushed her forwards. Her arms came out to try to break the fall, but the heels of her boots had tangled with the hem of her skirt and she could not keep her balance. Tipping towards the road, the clatter of horses and the shout of a driver alerted her to the presence of danger even before she felt it, and she attempted to twist and roll away from the flailing hooves.

      The wheels missed her face by a whisker, though her wrist and head hit the cobbles with a whacking crunch and the pain that radiated outwards made her feel nauseous, a receding blackness pushing away light. As she struggled to catch her breath, the shaking that she was engulfed in left her dizzy.

      ‘Sit still, ma’am.’ Sarah’s voice was so insistent that she did as she said, Elspeth’s sobbing behind making her wonder whether the accident was even worse than she had thought it. Wriggling her feet in her boots, she was relieved she could feel pain, for it meant that she was not paralysed.

      The warmth of her maid’s hand came across her own. ‘I do not think anything is broken, ma’am. I think if you tried to sit up.’

      Another man had now joined them and another. When Bea did as Sarah had directed and sat upright, she saw a whole group of people now ringed them. The back of her head throbbed in agony and the blood on her grazed arms soaked into her sleeves.

      ‘Wh…whathappened?’ She was still shaking and her heartbeat was so fast she wondered if she might have an apoplexy and simply expire, here on this road, with the thin spring sun on her now hatless head.

      ‘I think somebody pushed you, though I cannot be sure.’

      ‘Can you lift m…me up?’

      The two men who had knelt down beside her now took her arms on each side and carefully helped her to stand. The weight hurt her ankle and she pressed her knuckles into the skirt of her gown.

      ‘This shopkeeper says that you can lie down to rest in his back parlour and wait for the physician to come.’

      Beatrice nodded her head, regretting the motion as soon as she did so. To get away from all the stares of a growing audience would be most appreciated.

      Suddenly she felt like crying and all she could think about was that she wanted Taris Wellingham, wanted his confidence and his arms about her, wanted the feeling of safety he gave her, and his reason and his careful logic. When she was inside the parlour she would send a missive to his town house and ask him to come to her, for suddenly she did not care who might see them together, who might gossip about it or wonder. The tears she had tried to hold in fell in big drops down her cheeks.

      All she wanted was Taris Wellingham to come!

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