Mally : Signet Regency Romance (9781101568057) Read Online Free PDF Page B

had passed from sight ahead of them. “Mally, I never thought I would see him again.”
    â€œHow did you meet?”
    â€œOn our respective Grand Tours. We all stayed in the same establishment in Venice. Oh, and a fine time was had by one and all. Daniel nearly drowned in the Grand Canal, Richard floated away in a gondola leaving the pole stuck in the mud, and I stood on the bridge helpless with laughter!” He smiled. “We attended Eton together and then somehow Richard was parted from us. I only thought of him the other day.” He tilted her face toward his. “He was right, you know—he was always the very devil with the womenfolk. He’d give me a run for my money, I fancy.”
    â€œWith
me?
” She smiled and kissed him. “I don’t like human beansticks.”
    He looked beyond her to the other window of the carriage and grinned. “We are observed. Lady Annabel Murchison, no less. Don’t you feel the daggers in your back?” He pulled her closer for Annabel’s benefit. “Oh, how I enjoy being the object of such jealousy.”
    â€œYou rat.” She laughed, glancing behind at Annabel’s crimson face.
    â€œIt does my male pride endless good. I’m dining with her father tonight, a small matter of a thousand of my acres he wants to buy. I’ll see how high I can get him—he’s dripping with money.”
    â€œSo are you.”
    â€œThat’s the name of the game, sweetheart. I don’t want anything of his, so I’m calling the tune. Did you notice that beast Richard was riding, to change the subject like the grasshopper I am?”
    â€œYes, I noticed it. Some sort of thoroughbred was about all I could say to describe it.”
    â€œThoroughbred blood, undoubtedly. Rangy. It looked a good goer.” He put his arm around her shoulder as the carriage swayed around a corner and out of the park. “I was thinking the other day that if there was one man in the world I would like for my best man, it would be Richard Vallender. Now he can be, eh?”
    â€œBut what of your brother Henry?”
    â€œHenry can go whistle for the honor, I fear. I hadn’t asked him anyway. He’s still with the cavalry somewhere or other, cutting a dash if nothing else.”
    â€œYou are cruel. Henry is a fine officer.”
    â€œWith notions of grandeur. Sees himself as another budding Boney. Perhaps he is.”
    â€œWell, as Henry is a second son with little hope of inheriting when he has such a hale and healthy brother, I think he’s doing very well.”
    â€œAye,” he agreed, “little brother Harry does well enough—not that I would let him know I think that, for there’d be no living with him.”
    She untied her bonnet and tossed it across to the other seat next to her reticule. “I wonder what your Mr. Vallender’s wife was like?”
    â€œIf he intends commiserating with you, then you will no doubt find out.”
    She glanced at him quickly. “I’m sorry—” she began and felt immediately like biting her tongue off.
    â€œSorry? Why?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œIt was nothing, really.”
    He took a long breath. “Mally, what are you sorry about? God above, we are at it again! Why, oh
why,
won’t you tell me things?”
    She looked away.
Because when I do it’s the wrong thing too
— “I was going to say that I was sorry the conversation went the way it did.”
    â€œWhy should you apologize for that?”
    â€œI don’t really know.” The words fell uneasily into the carriage.
    The moments passed, and then he took her hand. “Perhaps we should get around to naming the day, eh? Perhaps that will solve our nit-picking?”
    Suddenly the thought of actually having the day set was all wrong, not when they argued and misunderstood each other all the time— Her silence could not be