A Christmas Bride / A Christmas Beau Read Online Free PDF Page B

Especially where men were concerned. Men were so easily manipulated. She laughed with amusement at something Sir Eric said.

    H ER LOW LAUGH shivered down his spine. It came straight from the bedchamber, even though she was sitting in a crowded dining room beneath brightly lighted chandeliers.
    She had seated herself in the empty chair beside his and was reacting to something her supper companion had said to her. She was totally unaware of him, of course, Edgar thought, as she had been all evening after that first assessing glance. She had not once looked his way after that. She was Lady Stapleton, widow of Sir Christian Stapleton of Brookhurst. Brookhurst was not so very far from Mobley Abbey—not above twenty-five or thirty miles. But she did not live there now. Sir Gerald Stapleton, the present owner, was only her stepson.
    Edgar had been introduced to three marriageable ladies during the course of the evening, all of whose parents had clearly been informed of his own possible interest and had acquiesced in allowing their daughters to be presented to a man whose immense wealth would perhaps compensate for the fact that he was not a gentleman. All three ladies were amiable, genteel, pretty. All three knew that he was a prospective bridegroom and they appeared docile and accepting. His sister and her cohorts had done a superlative job in so short a time, he thought. They had gone about things in the correct way, choosing with care, preparing the way with care, and leaving him choices.
    There was only one problem—well, two actually, but the second was not in the nature of a real problem, only of an annoyance. The problem was that all three ladies appeared impossibly young to him. It struck him that any one of them would be a perfect choice for just that reason. All three had any number of breeding yearsahead, and breeding was one of his main inducements to marry. But they seemed alarmingly young to him. Or rather, perhaps, he felt alarmingly old. Did he want a wife only so that he might breed her? He wanted more than that, of course. Far more.
    And the problem that was not a problem was his constant awareness—an uncomfortable, purely physical awareness—of the lady in scarlet. Lady Stapleton. His mouth had turned dry as soon as she seated herself beside him and he smelled her perfume—something subtle and feminine and obviously very expensive.
    And then she turned his way, leaned forward slightly, ignored him completely, and spoke to the young lady at his other side.
    “How do you do, Miss Grainger?” she said. “Allow me to tell you how pretty you look in blue. It is your color.”
    Her bosom brushed the top of the table as she spoke. And her voice was pure warm velvet. Edgar could see now that he was close that the red highlights he had noticed in her dark hair were no reflection of her gown. They were real. He could not make up his mind whether her eyes were hazel or green. They had elements of both colors.
    “Why, thank you,” Miss Grainger said, blushing and gratified. “It is my favorite color. But I sometimes wish I could wear vivid colors as you do.”
    Again that low bedroom laugh.
    “Oh,” Miss Grainger said, “may I present Mr. Downes? Lady Stapleton, sir.”
    Her eyes came to his. She did not move back, even though she was still leaning forward and was very close to him. He resisted the urge to move back himself. She looked very directly at him, a faint mockery or amusement or both in the depths of her glance.
    “Ma’am,” he said, inclining his head.
    “Mr. Downes.” She gazed at him. “Ah, now I remember. Lady Francis Kneller was a Downes before her marriage, was she not?”
    “She is my sister,” he said.
    “Ah.” She made no immediate attempt to say anything else. He could almost sense her remembering that Cora was the daughter of a Bristol merchant and realizing that he was no gentleman. That half smile deepened for a moment. “You are from the west country, sir?”
    “From Bristol,