a time. Just as well she didn’t need his approval nor want it. No longer being the thoughtless creature he had contrarily admired, she checked her temper, unclenched her teeth and forced herself to consider his words. Was this life enough? Not for her—she had taken her gamble on life and lost—but for Rachel?
‘You know Rachel loved Lieutenant Hollard very deeply,’ she said carefully, despising herself for the hesitant words issuing from her own lips.
‘You mean to warn me that my sister’s feelings run deep, my lady?’ he asked more gently.
She marvelled that he could go so quickly from stern commander to gentleman, whose reassuring presence invited confidence. And why was it that when he called her ‘my lady’ like that it suddenly seemed more like a promise than a rather archaic form of address? For a moment it seemed the most natural thing in the world to unburden herself, but then she decided it was a useful trick developed after years commanding troops.
‘Rachel may have put a brave face on her grief in her letters to you, but she was devastated when Lieutenant Hollard was killed.’
‘I read between the lines. But she was nineteen when Tom Hollard went down with his ship, and he would not have wanted her to wear the willow.’
‘Rachel could never cast his memory aside,’ Serena said with a frown. Yet at least Rachel had the lodestone of true love to measure her feelings against. So, yes, perhaps she could be happy with another man.
‘Tom wouldn’t want this state of not quite content for her,’ he said, with a flash of something in his golden-brown eyes that she couldn’t read. ‘It’s time my sister had another chance, Lady Summerton. Are you friend enough to help her take it?’
‘She’ll have my unflagging support once I’m convinced it’s for the best,’ she said, ‘but Rachel didn’t enjoy her debut very much.’
‘No, and she’s a stubborn minx,’ Sir Adam agreed philosophically. ‘But although she can’t be pushed she can be led—if one goes about it the right way.’
‘Which is?’ she asked, offended by the idea of his manipulating her friend, even with the best of intentions.
‘You sound every inch a countess when you put on that cut-glass voice and look down your inadequate nose at me, my dear.’
‘I’m not your dear, and it’s a perfectly good nose,’ she exclaimed, then frowned at him for provoking such childishness.
‘It is a perfect little nose—just not very well suited to looking down,’ he replied outrageously.
Serena wondered how Rachel had resisted the urge to murder him when they were in their nursery, for he must have been the most exasperating of brothers then, however considerate he was now. ‘My nose is irrelevant, Sir Adam, and if you’re so worried, why don’t you do something about it?’
‘What? Your nose? I like it very well as it is,’ he replied with an infuriating grin.
‘How flattering. But unfortunately your opinion of myself and my features is a matter of indifference to me. Confine yourself to your sister’s affairs,’ she informed him with frigid dignity.
‘She doesn’t have any,’ he informed her unrepentantly.
‘Something most brothers would be profoundly grateful for.’
‘I knew you hadn’t really become missish in your old age, Lady Summerton,’ he said, with every appearance of satisfaction.
Recognising his tactic of infuriating her to the point of indiscretion, she took a very deep breath and counted to ten. ‘Either stick to the subject in hand, Sir Adam, or I’ll drop my basket on your toe,’ she informed him coolly.
‘It’s really is most ungallant of me not to be carrying it in the first place. Whatever will Mrs Burgess say?’
‘I don’t care a straw what the wretched woman says. Give it back,’ she demanded, as he whisked the offending article out of her hand and put it on the grass at his side.
‘No. Now, stop distracting me and stick to our sheep,’ he goaded her, that wicked, compelling smile warming his gaze once more.
‘Pot calling kettle black, Sir Adam? You’re the one whose attention keeps wandering from the subject under discussion.’
‘With very good reason,’ he said with apparent satisfaction as his gaze dwelt on her animated face.
‘For no reason at all, so far as I can see,’ she countered smartly. Only to be confounded as he raised his eyebrows and gave her another of those warmly approving looks.
‘No,’ he replied softly, ‘I dare say you can’t.’
‘Oh, pray stop treating me like an idiot, and tell me how you plan to get Rachel to change her mind about marriage?’ she demanded impatiently.
Wrongfoot her and charm her as he would, she refused to succumb to the potent spell of a tall and handsome gentleman blessed with a wicked sense of humour and a very astute mind. Then there was his strength and integrity—qualities that would outlive mere bodily vigour, she reminded herself distractedly.
‘Very well, then, I shall take her to town—suitably chaperoned, of course.’
As his intent gaze fixed on her, Serena could hardly mistake the chaperon he had in mind. So that was why he had been conspiring to get her alone for so long. It was all she could do not to stamp her feet and fall into strong hysterics. All this time she had avoided him and he wanted her to chaperon his sister! She was delighted not to have to refuse a discreet affair between two untrammelled adults, of course, and need no longer call on Rachel when he was out. Except if he had his way she wouldn’t need to call on Rachel. She would be living with her.
Chapter Two
Serena had decided years ago that not even Sir Charles Grandison and brave young Lochinvar rolled into one dashingly perfect gentleman could persuade her to marry again. Not that Sir Adam had marriage in mind. No, even if he had been attempting to get her alone, he had a very different proposition to make her. Anyway, although he looked like a hero, Sir Adam Langthorne would probably tell a damsel in distress to pull herself together and fight her own dragons before he rode to her rescue. For some reason that sounded a wickedly tempting combination in a suitor, so it was just as well he had no intention of courting her.
‘That chaperon certainly won’t be me,’ she snapped, taken by surprise both by his determination to turn her into Rachel’s duenna and her own unwavering opposition.
Half an hour ago she might have found the idea of being removed from her monotonous routine and a distinctly unpromising future alluring—and in Rachel’s company as well. So why was she about to refuse such an escape from her responsibilities?
‘I should wait to be asked if I were you, my lady,’ he reproved, that infuriating smile once again making her palm itch to slap it off his lips.
‘I still won’t do it,’ she insisted implacably.
‘Well, that settles that, then,’ he said. And if he was trying to appear cast down he was failing dismally.
The wretched man
