Lord Harry's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

manner, but the look he directed at her was decidedly familiar. She was just about to turn away with haughty disdain when she stopped. There was something about the set of the peasant's shoulders, which were unusually broad for a man who spent his life tending sheep, that made her turn back to get a second look.
    Her eyes narrowed as she took in the long, angular face and the dark, straight brows that almost met across the high-bridged nose. Cocking her head to one side, she frowned suspiciously and then grinned. “Surely it is not the inquisitive major doing reconnaissance again? It is hardly necessary for you to go to such lengths, sir. If you wished to see more of my work you had only to ask instead of sneaking up on me in this havey cavey manner."
    The answering crack of laughter proved her to be correct in her suspicions. “Very good. You certainly have an eye for what is beneath a disguise, which makes you a very dangerous young lady indeed.” Despite his rough clothes, Mark sketched a bow as elegant and practiced as if he were greeting her at Almack's.
    “I would not say that dangerous is precisely the word, but certainly undeceived." Sophia regarded him curiously. There was no doubt that the major was both amused and intrigued by her penetration of his disguise, but there was some other emotion, something deeper there, that she could not quite identify. Though he had laughed at her sally, there had been something else, a shadow that had crossed his face ever so briefly when she had accused him of sneaking up on her. The expression had disappeared in an instant. In fact, if she had not spent years training herself to observe, identify, and record every flicker of an eyelash, every flaring of a nostril or tightening of a lip, she might not even have noticed it, but she had, and it made her more curious than ever about the man.
    Keeping an eye on his flock. Mark strolled over to look at the picture. “Most impressive, but not, I think, as good as the one I first saw you working on. This is picturesque, but it lacks the power of the other even though the landscape you are painting here is far more sublime."
    “It is almost too sublime. The scenery itself is so overwhelming that I cannot quite get a feel for the place."
    “Perhaps you do not feel comfortable enough yourself in such a landscape to be able to read its secrets and interpret them."
    Sophia, who had been gazing absently at the rocks on the other side of the river while he was speaking, turned around to stare at him, her hazel eyes wide with astonishment. “Yes, that is what it is. That is precisely what it is, but how did you know?"
    “Because I, too, am an observer of sorts, though not so talented as you, nor do I paint beautiful pictures.” Again the shadow crossed his face and an ironic, almost bitter note crept into his voice.
    Sophia recalled the reconnaissance mission that occasioned their first meeting. “Oh, so then you must be...” She paused, struggling to remember the precise term Speen had used. When she had described the officer she had met to her stepfather's batman, she had told him that the major seemed to have been observing the fortifications at San Sebastian. Ah, one of the duke's exploring officers, 1 expect, Speen had replied. As she questioned him further he had elaborated. The duke has a group of men upon whom he relies to find out information about everything—French troops, the roads, who among the locals can be trusted and who would sell him out for a few pieces of silver. They are all under the direction of the quartermaster general and the ones I know of, Sir John Waters, Colquhoun Grant, are exceptionally brave and talented men, as clever at disguising themselves as they are quick at seeing a thing and remembering it. They are as bold and resourceful as any man you could hope to meet because they always work alone. But neither Grant nor Waters looks like the man you describe.
    “An exploring officer?” Mark supplied