Loretta Chase - The Devil's Delilah Read Online Free PDF Page B

you've given me your hand, may I have your arm as well?" she asked lightly. "Will you walk with me and talk amiable inanities, as though we'd only now met in these sedate circumstances?"
    "With pleasure," said her companion. He did not look pleased, however. He looked as though he'd much prefer to run away.
    Though common sense told her he had good reason to avoid her, Miss Desmond had sufficient vanity to be piqued by this show of reluctance.
    "If you think it a pleasure, oughtn't you smile at least?" she chided as she took his arm and they began to walk. "You look so grim, as though I had asked you to commit treason — " She caught herself up, struck with a disconcerting possibility. "Or have I stepped wrong again? Was it forward of me to ask for your company?"
    "Forward?" he asked, plainly bewildered.
    "Fast. Bold. Vulgar. I don't know. Was it wrong?"
    He considered for a moment. "Not wrong certainly. I mean, it can't be a hanging offence," he said with a faint smile, "though there were over two hundred of them at last count. As to bold or forward or fast, I am the last man on earth who'd know. There are some subtleties of social behavior that utterly elude me. My friend Max always says any behaviour that's pleasant can't be correct. If I employ his measure, I must conclude," he said, his smile broadening and lighting up the clean, straight lines of his profile, "that it is incorrect."
    He turned the smile full upon her then, and Miss Desmond felt a tad breathless, but she answered sturdily enough. "Of course it must be. I fear the subtleties elude me also, Mr. Langdon, but I assure you I mean to learn them. In future I will not make such unseemly requests. Lud, I hope I commit no faux pas at tea. As it is,, her ladyship seems in constant expectation of some outrage. I daresay she's certain that Papa and I will swing from the draperies or slide down banisters or, heaven help us, treat the servants like human beings."
    "You had better not say 'lud' then, Miss Desmond. I distinctly recall my mother ringing a peal over my sister Gwendolyn on that account."
    "Fast?"
    "Vulgar."
    "How tiresome."
    "Then we shan't speak of it," said Mr. Langdon, and immediately turned the subject. "I understand you plan to visit your aunt?"
    "My great-aunt. Lady Potterby."
    Her companion started. "Lady Millicent Potterby?"
    "Yes. Do you know her?" Delilah asked, wondering why he'd changed instantly from amiability to discomfiture. Was there some dreadful scandal about Mama's Aunt Mimsy as well?
    "I know her very well. She is a near neighbour of my uncle. The properties adjoin, actually. What a small world it is," he added uneasily. "I was on my way to visit him."
    They had reached the shrubbery, but instead of taking the narrow pathway between the tall hedges, he steered her along the outer border.
    Miss Desmond did not at first notice the abrupt change in direction. She was too taken up with the unsettling news that Mr. Langdon would be her next door neighbour — if, that is, he persisted in his intention to visit with his uncle. Perhaps now he would change his mind — and why on earth were they circling the hedges instead of entering them?
    "Oh, Mr. Langdon, is it not a maze? I should like ever so much — "
    "Another time, perhaps," he said stiffly.
    She felt the warmth rising in her cheeks. "Lud — I mean, good heavens — I had not thought — but these tall hedges would screen one from view of the house, and we are obliged to keep in plain sight, are we not?"
    "Miss Desmond — " He hesitated. Then he drew a long breath and said, "It is not a true maze, and we are indeed so obliged, particularly as your maid is not with you."
    "To protect me, you mean. But from what, sir?" she could not help asking. "Do wild animals lurk there? Or is the danger in your company?"
    "No — at least- no ."
    She felt the muscles of his arm tighten under her hand and wondered if he would bolt now. Instead, he bent a searching look upon her and after a moment's