Cecilia Grant [Blackshear Fam A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wron

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.” Deuce take it.Deep in the wilds of Norfolk he might be, but that didn’t mean he must give in to whatever lax standards of decorum prevailed here.Rather he would set them all the example of how civilized people behaved.Lord knows he had enough practice in setting such examples.Among the rakes-in-training at Cambridge, for the younger Blackshear brothers and sisters deprived of a steady parental presence, he’d made it his business to demonstrate, always, the proper conduct of a gentleman.So could he now do for this girl—not that he’d deliberately taken note of her age, but by the vigor of her ambulation, and the shapely bit of leg he’d not been able to avoid glimpsing, girl did seem the accurate identifier; she was surely no matron—at all events he would show her, by passing her with a nod and no remark, just how a decent man should be expected to—She turned, a lash of wind snatching her hood from her grasp and throwing it back to expose her, and the question of what a decent man would do went spinning off like another wet leaf in the storm.Shock sparked at the nape of his neck, followed by a faint, irrational prickling of shame, and an impulse to avert his eyes.Not only did the girl wear no hat or bonnet, but her hair—pitch-dark masses of it—fell straight down, unbound and ungoverned, for some scandalous number of inches before it disappeared into the collar of her cloak.His hands tightened on the reins.No woman, not even a sister, had ever appeared before him with her hair undone.It was one of those intimacies a gentleman looked forward to enjoying after his wedding, or upon taking a lover, if he were the sort of man to do that.It wasn’t an experience one expected to encounter on a mundane afternoon on a road in the hinterlands of Norfolk.He disapproved.He disapproved altogether of this girl, who made not the slightest attempt to cover her head again but merely backed to the yew-edge of the lane to let him pass, the wind now tugging at this or that lock of hair and threatening to spring one free and unfurl it stark as a mourning ribbon on the winter air.Andrew swallowed.He’d stopped the horses, it seemed, when he’d come up alongside her, and now sat stupidly under her calm, curious, unashamed gaze.Why had he done that? Did he intend to sit here and ogle her hair, hoping the wind might succeed in liberating a piece for his more thorough inspection before the rain plastered the whole of it to her head?A nearby sound intruded on his stupid trance: beside him, John Coachman was clearing his throat and sending a hand, slowly, toward his hat.Right.Of course.Hat.Andrew caught at his own.Regardless of his reason for stopping, he’d stopped.He’d be polite now, and regain his scattered thoughts and his dignity both.“Pardon me.Good day.” Would you be so good as to direct me to the manor house at Mosscroft? “Is there somewhere I can convey you? It’s a dreadful day to be out on foot.” Heat surged from his cheeks right up to his hairline as the appalling, unaccountable words spilled from his tongue.The girl’s eyes flicked from him to the carriage and her mouth tightened, lips rolling inward a fraction of an inch.Lord, her mouth.Her mouth was a sinning man’s fever dream.What the devil was wrong with him? Could one glimpse—well, one sustained and continuing view—of undressed hair really strip him so easily of all the civility and self-command that made up his better being?No more of this nonsense about mouths and sin.“Forgive my being forward.” That was more the thing.“I assure you I mean nothing improper.” He forced his gaze to his hat, which he’d foolishly turned upside-down on his knee and which was on its way to being sodden on the inside.He flipped it over.“Only it’s such a day, and I couldn’t help… that is, you’d have the carriage entirely to yourself, as I need to stay here on the box…” Worse and worse.He sounded like some duplicitous fellow in a Gothic novel, all chivalrous propriety until the instant the carriage door clicked shut and he could crack his whip and go thundering away with her to his bleak remote castle.“Deuce take it.I don’t make a habit of addressing young women without a proper introduction, I promise.” He risked a sideways look at her.“I’ve offended you, I fear.”She shook her head and smiled, a sling-shot of a smile that struck him dead center in the chest and knocked out a little of his breath.“Not at all.You’re kind to offer.” Her accent was good, not so raw and rangy as her demeanor might lead one to expect.“And I trust you won’t be offended if I decline.”“Oh, no, no.I understand.” Indeed her refusal was for the best.If she’d accepted his offer, he’d have had to worry over what other strange men’s carriages she might heedlessly climb into [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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