Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Leathorne’s querulous voice was raised over the conversation of the others.
    Drake turned his cool glance toward his father, resenting the way he had drawn attention to them, interrupting what was a most interesting conversation. “We are not whispering, sir.” He glanced at his companion and saw on her cheeks that pretty rose shade again. Ah, she did not like attention drawn to her, it seemed. “Miss Becket was asking me about the war,” he added. “We were conversing, not whispering.” He saw the swift frown on Lady Swinley’s pinched face. Was Miss Becket, spinster and vicar’s daughter, truly a “companion” in the paid sense, he wondered, and did Lady Swinley hold that over the young lady?
    “As a matter of fact, Miss Becket had just agreed to allow me to escort her on a tour of the gardens,” he said with sudden decision. He rose and held out his arm for Miss Becket, noting how the pink stain on her cheeks deepened.
    Lady Leathorne watched them exit the saloon through the large doors between the sets of windows that lined one wall. On the one hand, it was good to see Drake being an obliging host, and drawing out that mousy companion of Arabella’s, but he had not spent two minutes talking to Lady Swinley and her daughter. Isabella and Arabella had been invited with the express intention of matching the two young people in a marriage that would virtually guarantee the future of the Leathorne holdings through their progeny. It would also unite two old and proud families. This beginning did not bode well for the visit. Isabella’s narrow, lined face was pinched into a frown, and even Arabella’s lovely young visage was showing how much she would look like her mother in time.
    Perhaps she should have canceled this visit, or at least postponed it, Lady Leathorne thought, knowing Drake was still ill, if not in body, then in his troubled mind. But the Swinleys had been invited the moment she had known when her son would be home. She couldn’t very well have uninvited them without an explanation, and she supposed she did not want to admit even to herself how sick her son was. The servants were gossiping, she knew, about the young master being “not quite right in the head.” One poor maid had found him dozing in the library, and as she had come to find him to deliver a message, had tried to awaken him. He had reacted most violently, striking out at her and shouting, whereupon the girl had gone into hysterics.
    All of that would not be so bad if he did not fall into those brooding silences, often ignoring guests totally. If Lord Conroy was not there visiting—he was so skillful socially, and always had a way of deflecting attention away from his friend’s moodiness—Drake’s behavior would probably already have become common gossip in the neighborhood.
    No, she would just have to have a talk with Drake about his behavior. Arabella had every right to be miffed that he appeared to prefer her companion, some poor relation, over her. It was terribly rude! At least Conroy, dear boy, had turned on his legendary charm and was turning her up sweet.
    Lady Leathorne gazed out the window with troubled eyes to where her son was strolling arm in arm with Miss Becket. Miss Truelove Beckons, indeed!

Chapter Three
     
    Oh, this was ridiculous, True scolded herself. Her emotions were a chaotic jumble of pleasure and nervousness and . . . well, and a silly feeling that she would swoon from the very touch of this devastatingly attractive man at her side. He held her arm close to his body as they strolled through the formal squares of gardens lined with boxwood hedges and filled with chrysanthemums. Fragrant herbs spilled over the walkway in riotous profusion: lavender, rosemary, low globes of thyme and red-leafed basil that sent up their perfume when crushed inadvertently by a footstep. His hands were ungloved, and she was fascinated by the broad strength of them, the prominent veins, and how very different they were from