Seduced by a Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

acute awareness of her, the danger of it, and he thought he ought to leave at once.
    Because Miss Weston, with her cool gaze and cultured tone, her wide, lush mouth and carefully cultivated veneer, recognized it as well.
    And there was danger in that.

Chapter 4
     
     
    Sir Gabriel St. Aubyn stayed for tea.
    He had no wish to. Catherine discerned his distaste in the rigid set of his jaw and the way he stayed to the far corner of the room, near the open door, after he rang for the maid and instructed that a tray be brought up.
    “Frightful weather,” Catherine murmured to fill the stilted silence as she fluffed Madeline’s pillows and helped her to sit up against them.
    Madeline made no reply, but St. Aubyn offered the unusual opinion, “I prefer rain to sun,” in a bland, bored tone. He leaned one shoulder against the paneled wall, arms folded across his chest. His pose was casual, but Catherine read leashed tension in the long, lithe lines of his form. A fencer’s frame. Not heavy and bulky, but muscled nonetheless.
    The silence returned, stifling in its weight. Madeline cast repeated, agitated glances in St. Aubyn’s direction, and then quickly looked away if his gaze rested upon her even for an instant. Catherine wondered at the obvious strain between them, wondered, too, if it was perversity that made him inflict his presence on his cousin. She was clearly uncomfortable when he was about.
    No, she was more than uncomfortable. She was afraid. Which left Catherine unable to fathom his reasons for remaining. Perhaps he gained pleasure from Madeline’s unease. A disturbing possibility.
    “Quite a downpour we had earlier,” she said, with a glance toward the curtained window, and knew at once that she ought not to have bothered.
    St. Aubyn pushed off the wall and turned his attention full upon her. “Shall we venture into the exciting territory of the difference between a drizzle and a mist? Or perhaps between a torrent and a downpour?”
    “You dislike the weather as a topic of conversation?” Catherine met his gaze. It would take more than a man’s disdain to cow her.
    “I dislike conversation without purpose.”
    “A great majority of conversation has no purpose other than to acquaint the participants with each other in some small measure and perhaps lead to further intimacy as that acquaintance blossoms and grows.”
    His brows rose. “Intimacy, Miss Weston?” His tone was shaded with multilayered nuance.
    Catherine kept her expression neutral, refusing to recoil and look away. Let him imply what he would. He knew perfectly well the intent of her statement.
    He offered a spare smile, and then crossed to a small table piled high with books. Leaning down, he blew some of the dust away with three short, sharp puffs. Then he deftly removed the stacks of books to the floor.
    “You must let the maid in to clean, Madeline,” he chided in a hard tone.
    Madeline glanced at him with a quick, frightened shift of her eyes, then resumed her frantic plucking at the coverlet.
    “I do not like the servants to poke about my things,” she whispered, her voice so low that Catherine needed to lean in to catch her words. “They watch me and judge me. They wait only for the opportunity to—” She gave a shaky exhalation and said nothing more.
    Tension permeated the cousins’ exchange. Catherine wondered if Madeline’s unease was justified. Time enough to ask her later, when St. Aubyn left them and she was more relaxed. Closing her fingers over Madeline’s, Catherine stilled her movements and sent her a reassuring smile, though a tumult of questions danced through her thoughts.
    Another stack of books slammed to the floor, and for an instant, Catherine was tempted to laugh at the bizarre nature of the situation. Here she was, ensconced in a dim chamber filled with dusty books and unspoken—but poorly concealed—enmities. Her introduction to Cairncroft Abbey verged on the ridiculous.
    “Your trip was pleasant?”