Helen Dickson Read Online Free PDF Page A

looked when they had parted. Without another word, he quickly replaced his hat and, securing the handkerchief over the lower half of his face, took her arm and escorted her back to the coach.
    Scooping up her cloak from the ground, Laura slipped it around her shoulders. If, by disappearing with his wife into the dark seclusion of the trees, Lucas had intended to drive Edward to a fury, he had succeeded. When they appeared Edward uttered a short, inarticulate cry of rage. For an instant Laura read madness in his eyes. His teeth were clenched and his hands opened and closed convulsively. She feared he was about to launch himself at Lucas, but thankfully he restrained himself.
    ‘If you’ve laid so much as one finger on her, you swine,by God, by the time I’ve finished you are going to regret that you were born,’ Edward ground out, his voice hoarse with rage. ‘You’ll suffer for this one day. I swear it.’
    Contemptuous of his neighbour, Lucas scorned him. ‘Your threats don’t worry me, Carlyle. Reserve your concern for yourself. Now be on your way. Take the lady home.’ He waited until Edward had assisted Laura inside the coach before he swung himself into the saddle. His accomplice did the same—though with less agility—and they did not lower their pistols until Amos had whipped up the horses and the coach was trundling towards Roslyn Manor.
    Laura did not turn and look back at her husband, but she knew that as he watched her leave with Edward beneath the concealing handkerchief his face had hardened into a mask of icy wrath. Inside the coach she looked at Edward’s granite features, wondering how she was going to tell him she could not marry him.
    ‘It’s all right, Edward. Nothing happened,’ she said, in an attempt to alleviate any fears he might have that she had been molested, but instead of calming him her words enraged him and he threw her a glance loaded with suspicion.
    ‘You expect me to believe that villain didn’t lay a hand on you?’ he seethed. ‘You were gone a full ten minutes.’
    Laura forced herself to keep calm and managed to conjure up a gentle smile. Above all, she must not let Edward see the unnerving effect her meeting with Lucas had had on her. ‘I swear he didn’t touch me. We—talked, that is all.’
    His narrowed eyes glittered across at her. ‘Talked? It gets even more intriguing. Do you mind telling me what you talked about—what you could possibly have to say to a man who had just stolen your jewels? ’Tis not an easy tale to believe. I’ll take my oath that had I followed you I would have seen that—that blackguard taking you in his arms with the intent of ravishing you.’
    Stung by the contempt in his voice, Laura stiffened. ‘You are in error, Edward. I swear he did not touch me. You will have to be content with that. At least we have come away from the incident unharmed—if a little poorer. For that we must be thankful.’
    Edward leaned into his corner, quietly fuming. ‘That man will regret this night’s work. I will not rest until I find him and see him hanged.’
    Seated across from him, Laura shuddered. She had never seen such hatred in a human gaze. Turning her head, she looked into the darkness beyond the window, and as they travelled on she felt as if she’d imagined the whole encounter with her husband. The sense of unreality stayed with her all the way to Roslyn. The man who had suddenly reappeared in her life commandeered all her thoughts, and she found her mind drifting back to the circumstances of their first meeting.
    She had been living in London then, with her father, Sir James Russell, who was attached to the Admiralty in Whitehall. Her mother had been dead several years. Aunt Josaphine, her mother’s sister, who had always taken a kindly interest in her young niece, frequently invited her and her father to join small, diverting parties at her town house, where her guests were chosen for their charm and gaiety.
    It was at one of these