Lord Haversham Takes Command Read Online Free PDF Page B

“The rowing accident was just that; an accident. Meanwhile, your mother is quite correct when she says that we mustn’t belittle Harry or his parents, though I must own I have a very low opinion of his new attitude.”
    With an exasperated smile, Lady Crenshaw put down her goblet with a decided thump against the tabletop. “Anthony, you know that is not the remonstration I had in mind.”
    “I realize that, dear, but it was the one
I
had in mind, and quite literally, I might add.”
    The gales of laughter that followed her father’s remark seemed more than a little brash. Her brothers were two and three years older than she, but they often behaved as if they were mere children. It was enough to convince her that she ought to look for an older man among the claimants for her hand at the end of the Season. Mira could not fathom why Harry’s face should flash into her mind with the thought, as ‘Bertie’ had turned out to be the most childish of all the boys with whom she had grown up. Idly, she wondered if he might be different if he had not gone to the Continent straight from Eton, but she dismissed the idea almost as quickly as she thought it. Harry was of an age with Stephen, and there was no question
he
was too young to contemplate marriage in the near future, Grand Tour or no.
    Later that evening, as she stitched new ribbons into her periwinkle blue calash, Mira thought again of Harry; not the Harry she once knew and certainly not ‘Bertie,’ but the Harry who had looked at her with such intensity when he had visited Prospero Park only a few days prior. For that one moment, there was something about the expression in his eyes that made her heart feel a bit wrenched whenever the memory came to mind. It was as if the man that stood before her for that sliver in time was altogether a different person from the youthful Harry she once knew and the childish version she did not recognize.
    This ephemeral Harry was far too taciturn for her taste, but he was also ardent, manly, and entirely present. In the intervening days since they met, she had spent a fair amount of time in imaginary conversation with him, and the thought had occurred to her that it should prove difficult to find a suitor to compare with the very real Harry she had invented in her mind.
    Her
Harry was an excellent conversationalist, wiser than his years, filled out his tasteful clothing to admiration, treated a girl like a lady, and, just for good measure, was capable of banishing danger with a flick of his finger. She supposed it was a dash dramatic, but, in case it were necessary, he was fully capable of wrestling a tiger or two. Lastly, but far from least important, one look from him would cause her stomach to flutter in much the same fashion it had a few days previous. In fact, it fluttered, still, every time she thought of the way his green gaze clung to her own.
    Suddenly, fresh ribbons for her headgear for the trip to London seemed utterly superfluous unless Harry were to see her with the very bow tied under her chin. Her new cape of bottle green she had been in raptures over only the week before seemed insignificant, nay, downright insipid if Harry were not to see how it brought out the sheen in her red curls. Even the most recent addition to her wardrobe, kid leather boots with tiny rosettes, seemed dull as ditch water unless they made Harry’s eyes shine.
    How lamentable that Harry was a figment of her imagination. There was only ‘Bertie,’ and she hadn’t the slightest desire to be admired by him, now or ever. She felt much the same about her cousin, George, who, as the Duke of Marcross, must be addressed by his title in spite of the fact that as children she had seen him with jam smeared all over his face on more than a few occasions. The Duke, however, was not as easily avoided most especially since he, without warning, joined Mira and her parents on their journey to London the following morning. It was all she could do not to cry out