To Win a Lady's Heart (The Landon Sisters) Read Online Free PDF Page A

were turned, leaving the two of them, for all intents and purposes, alone.
    It was so brief, she could have imagined it.
    But she didn’t.
    They shared something—something unnamable. It left Grace warm in a way she’d never before known warmth.

Chapter Four
    Corbeau was in trouble. A light dusting of freckles swept over Lady Grace’s nose and cheeks, faded from the winter months, but still visible under careful observation. She probably hated them. Women and men alike were prone to thinking freckles a disfiguring ailment.
    If he were peculiar for his liking, so be it. The whole rest of the world could go hang in being blind to the appeal.
    As for him, all he could think about was how spring and summer would bring them out again, and how by then he’d be her husband, with a husband’s right to kiss each and every one.
    They were gathered in the drawing room to take refreshments, the tea tasting like nothing at all, what with his mind so full of Lady Grace. She was there upon the blue sofa across from him, traveling skirts carefully gathered around her—so close, yet so far apart. So untouchable in every way.
    Remembering himself and his duty, he struggled to dredge up something to say in the silence. The ladies sat politely, studying the room with the overattentiveness of those not entirely at ease in their current situation.
    He made himself take a steadying lungful of air and spoke by rote. “I apologize for my sister’s absence. Had she known of your imminent arrival, nothing would have taken her away from the house this morning.”
    “Oh, dear. We are indeed such an inconvenience to you, my lord. I do pray you will accept our apologies.” Lady Bennington was a handsome woman who’d aged with considerable grace.
    She’d married late—and, though beside the point, rather shockingly—and so was past the years of many mothers whose children were all under thirty and over twenty.
    Lady Bennington was regal in her bearing and stately in her comportment. It was as if she had taken the entire burden of the Bennington reputation on her shoulders and attended duty with the utmost seriousness.
    The ultimate disgrace of her marriage was a story well known by all, and still much spoken of, though the lady herself showed not the least inclination to be put down by the infamy of her husband’s painful demise.
    “I will hear nothing of the sort, ma’am.”
    “I regret to tell you that my second daughter, Lady Isabel, wasn’t able to take you up on your kind invitation. Indeed, she’s very necessary to her aunt, you see, having been her companion these past five years at least, and by the time it was decided she should remain behind, there was no time to send a message. I do hope we haven’t caused you any unnecessary trouble, my lord.”
    His awareness of Lady Grace was so acute, it was difficult to pay proper attention to her mother. Lady Grace’s every movement, every glance, every gesture pulled at him. They’d been so easy together while they’d been locked in the storeroom. If he had her alone now, what might he say? And what might she?
    “No trouble at all, I assure you. Pray make yourself easy upon the matter.” Lord, but he sounded stiff.
    Were Hetty present, the social intercourse would be going much more smoothly.
    This is why he kept a wide berth from Lady Grace. She deprived him of speech and reason. He was what he was and he made no apologies, but she robbed him of the control he’d learned so painfully and for which he prized himself most highly. She made him a stranger to himself. How could he at once be so occupied with kissing each of her freckles while experiencing a sensation not unlike dread when considering what the years of their marriage would bring?
    A sound came from the furniture as the youngest of them, Lady Phoebe, shifted herself. Lady Jane, the third of the four daughters, if memory served, kept her lips tight and continued to study the room. Lady Grace just stared into her