Only Enchanting Read Online Free PDF Page B

would not. He would not survive now without them.
    They were his family.
    He had another family of people who shared his bloodlines and his ancestral history. He was even fond of them, almost without exception, and they of him. But these, his six friends—George, Hugo, Ben, Ralph, Imogen, and Vincent—were the family of his heart.
    Devil take it, what a phrase— family of his heart . It was enough to make any self-respecting male want to vomit. It was a good thing he had not said it aloud.
    Keeping, he thought apropos of nothing as he went back downstairs to greet the new arrival. His mind had winked, and there it was—the woman’s name. Mrs. Keeping, widow. An odd name, but then, perhaps his own name, Arnott, was odd too. Any name was, when one thought about it long enough.
    *   *   *
    By the time Agnes had arrived home and removed her bonnet and pelisse, and tidied her hair and washed her hands, her heart had stopped thumping sufficiently that she did not think Dora would hear it when she went downstairs to join her in the sitting room.
    It really, really was not fair that he looked even more handsome and virile on horseback than in a ballroom.He had been wearing a long, drab riding coat with goodness knows how many shoulder capes—it had not occurred to her to count them—and a tall hat set at a very slightly jaunty angle on his near-blond head. She had been suffocatingly aware of his supple leather boots and powerful thighs in tight riding breeches, and of his military posture and broad chest and mocking, handsome face.
    The very sight of him just when she thought she was going to make it home safely had thrown her into such a stupid flutter that she could not remember now how she had behaved. Had she acknowledged him in some civil way? Had she gawked? Had she shaken visibly like a leaf in a hurricane? Had she blushed ? Oh, dear God, please let her not have blushed. How dreadfully lowering that would be. Good heavens, she was twenty-six . And she was a widow .
    “Oh, there you are, dearest,” Dora said, lifting her hands from the keyboard of her ancient but lovingly cared-for and meticulously well-tuned pianoforte. “You are later than you said you would be—but when are you not when you have been painting? You have been missing all the fun.”
    “I never mean to be late,” Agnes said, stooping to kiss her sister’s cheek.
    “I know.” Dora got to her feet and rang the silver bell on top of the instrument as a signal to their housekeeper to bring in the tea tray. “It happens to me when I play. It is a good thing we are both absentminded artists, or we might be forever bickering and accusing each other of neglect. You found something absorbing to paint, then?”
    “Daffodils in the grass,” Agnes said. “They are always so much lovelier there than they are in flower beds. What is the fun I have missed?”
    “The guests for Middlebury Park have begun toarrive,” Dora said. “A single horseman rode by a short while ago. He was past the house before I could dash to the window, even though I went at breakneck speed, and I saw only his back, but I believe he might have been the handsome viscount of the mocking eyebrow who was at the October ball.”
    “Viscount Ponsonby?” Agnes said, and her heart began its heavy thumping again, threatening to deafen her and make her voice breathless. “Yes, you are quite right. I passed him farther along the street, and he actually acknowledged me and bade me a good afternoon. He could not remember my name, however. I could almost hear him searching his mind for it. He called me ma’am instead.”
    Goodness, had she really noticed that much?
    “And just a few minutes ago,” Dora said, “there were a couple of carriages. There were two people in the first, a lady and gentleman. The second was loaded down with a prodigious pile of baggage and contained a man who looked so superior that he was either a duke or a valet. I suspect the latter. I almost called up