The Suitor Read Online Free PDF Page A

brought news of myson.”
    “He is … not here?” he asked. “I beg your pardon for intruding upon you, ma’am.”
    Philippa, he could see with his peripheral vision, was as still as a statue.
    “Not at all,” the older lady said briskly. “I am sorry that you have come out of your way for nothing. He is not here.”
    “Perhaps he has merely gone somewhere for the day, Mama, and forgot to tell us,” a young lady said from her seat to Julian’s left.
    “With his trunk and half his clothes and his valet?” a gentleman who was standing before the fireplace said. “Not to mention his traveling carriage and his coachman and four horses? Hardly, Ursula.”
    “Anthony!” another young lady said sharply.
    “He has bolted,” the man called Anthony said. “That is what he has done. I said it at breakfast, and I say it again.”
    “Anthony!” The same young lady sounded mortified.
    “He has indeed gone,” Mrs. Hunt said with weary resignation.
    Julian felt acutely embarrassed—and something else too, which he was not yet at liberty to explore.
    Darleigh had gone? Left home? Run away? Just when he had been presented with a prospective bride and was expected to make her an offer of marriage? And she was here in this very room with her parents—no doubt a horrible embarrassment for his family.
    “I do beg your pardon, Mr. Crabbe,” Mrs. Hunt said. “You will think we have the shabbiest of manners. Allow me to introduce everyone, and then we will all have coffee and cakes. Vincent has gone away quite abruptly, and I invited you in here in the hope that you brought word of him. No matter. You must stay awhile anyway.”
    She proceeded to introduce him to her mother, to her daughters and their husbands, and to her guests.
    He should, Julian thought, withdraw immediately. His continued presence here would seem an unpardonable intrusion. But he could not tear himself away just yet.
    “Crabbe.” Mr. Dean got to his feet when he was introduced and bowed stiffly. “I believe we have a previous acquaintance.”
    “An unhappy one, as I remember with deep regret, sir.” Julian returned his bow. “I was awild young cub in those days.”
    He bowed to Mrs. Dean and asked her how she did.
    “Do you have an acquaintance with Miss Dean also, Mr. Crabbe?” Mrs. Hunt asked him, indicating Philippa by the window.
    At last she moved. And at last he looked at her.
    For the first time in two years.
    She curtsied. He bowed. She raised her eyes to his.
    He had held in his memory an image of a sweet, almost ethereally pretty blond, green-eyed slip of a girl with an eager, smiling countenance. Two years had made her only more beautiful, for she was clearly a woman now.
    If it was possible for a heart to stop and then resume its beating, then his surely did just that within the second or two that elapsed after the introduction.
    “Miss Dean,” he said.
    “Mr. Crabbe.”
    Ah, that well-remembered sweet, light voice. Memory had not done it full justice.
    Why the devil had Darleigh gone away?
    But he had, and she was free.
    She was free .
    “You must be wishing me at Jericho, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Hunt, tearing his eyes away from Philippa’s. “I have come at an awkward time and embarrassed everyone.”
    He hoped the Deans would not hold it against him.
    “No one need be embarrassed on our account,” Mrs. Dean said briskly. “You invited us here for a week or two, Mrs. Hunt, on account of my mama-in-law’s friendship with Mrs. Pearl, and we have enjoyed your kind hospitality more than I can say. We will return to London with renewed vigor to enjoy the rest of the Season.”
    “It is kind of you to be so gracious,” Mrs. Hunt said. “I am quite sure there are many gentlemen who will be delighted to see Miss Dean back among them.”
    All eyes turned toward Philippa, and she half stumbled as she turned to the window, reaching out to the windowsill to steady herself even as Julian took a hasty step toward her and her