Loe raamatut: «An Experiment in Love»

Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Copyright

Chapter One

‘Gentlemen do not whimper.’

‘Gentlemen don’t snigger at their afflicted friends either,’ Lord Christopher Fellingham retorted as he threw himself into an armchair in James Albright’s library.

‘Snigger?’ Lord James blinked at his old friend through the thick lenses of his spectacles. ‘Never. But why were you courting the chit if you’ve no intention of marrying her?’

‘I was not courting her. I’ve known Antonia Woolmer since she was in the cradle. I was squiring her about, making her feel at ease in Town. Being neighbourly.’

‘But if you’ve been betrothed to her for years…’

‘It was a jest! Our fathers came up with the hair-brained scheme in their cups and it became a standing joke. You know the sort of thing, When you two young people are married, blah, blah. Then she’d blush and giggle and I’d put a frog in her pocket.’ Kit gestured, the heavy gold signet on his left hand catching the late afternoon sunlight. ‘We didn’t take it seriously, never spoke of it. Never agreed to it. Now, five months into her first Season, he’s demanding to know when I’m going to propose to her. The dratted man is doing everything except load his shotgun.’ He shuddered. ‘He’s in no mood to listen to reason!’

‘You can see why,’ James said. ‘He’s a country squire, you’re the Earl of Twyford, an excellent catch for his daughter and he believes he has you netted. But if you know her and like her enough, why not marry her? You were saying you were serious about settling down, establishing the nursery, all that.’

‘Because she’s a sweet girl with the brain of a peahen,’ Kit said. ‘And a giggle like a Guinea fowl.’ James winced. ‘If there are two ideas in her head, beyond shopping and fashions, I’ve never heard her utter them.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah, indeed. I might be resigned to marriage but it doesn’t mean I’ve got to settle for a lifetime with a woman who makes my ears bleed with boredom after an hour.’

‘And who giggles. Yes, I understand. But what are you going to do?’

‘Tell him I never took it seriously, that I regard Antonia in the light of a sister.’

‘Will he accept that?’

‘Doubt it.’ Kit hunched a shoulder defensively. ‘Damn it, he thinks she’s perfect, but she’s not. Not for me. If I can’t get out of this with some smidgeon of honour then the pair of us will be condemned to a lifetime of indifference, at the best.’

‘Are her affections engaged?’ James asked. ‘If she’s in love with you, there’s no getting out of this.’

‘Lord no. She confides in me about one man after another. Perhaps she’d like an officer because of the uniform. Or a duke, because she’d like to be Her Grace. Or she thinks black-haired men are the most dashing. But she’ll obey her papa, that’s the rub.’

James got to his feet with a snort of laughter. ‘Good thing you are a civilian, blond earl, then. Well, now you’ve taken refuge here, you’d better make yourself at home. They’ve put you in the Green Bedchamber. I’ve got to talk to my secretary. Help yourself to the decanters, old man.’ He paused with his hand on the catch. ‘You’re done for unless you can convince him that you’ve a prior obligation—and a damn good reason for keeping it quiet.’

‘Hell.’ Kit stared at the closing door and then, with yearning, at the brandy decanter. Getting foxed wouldn’t make Antonia vanish. ‘What am I going to do?’

There was a sound from the far corner where a winged chair stood facing the shelves. A tousled head, crowned with two goose quills, appeared over the back and an oval face with a smudge on the chin and a pair of gilt-framed spectacles perched on its nose regarded him solemnly. ‘You could marry me,’ suggested the young woman. ‘I don’t mind.’

Chapter Two

‘…marry me.’ What on earth have I done? Chloe thought. Kit Fellingham was staring at her as if she had escaped from Bedlam.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded with less than gentlemanly finesse. At least he was not running. Yet.

‘Chloe Albright. Don’t you remember me?’

‘The bluestocking?’

Chloe hated that word. If a woman had a glimmering of intelligence and opinions of her own she was labelled a bluestocking. Which came with the subtext, eccentric, unfeminine and likely to run off to Wales to live with another woman in a man-hating household.

‘No,’ she said coldly, getting down from her unladylike position kneeling on the chair seat. ‘I am a scientist. A geologist to be exact.’

‘Plutonist or Neptunist?’ he demanded, startling Chloe. Not even her own family remembered that much information.

‘Plutonist. Which are you?’

‘I don’t know enough about it to form an opinion.’

A sensible answer. Chloe added intellectual humility to the other good points Kit possessed, which included being the nicest man she knew after her own brother. She hoped he hadn’t changed, it would be dreadful to propose to a man she could not like, even if it was all a ruse.

‘I have James Hutton’s work on the subject if you wish to borrow it,’ she offered. ‘I’m reading the final volume.’

Kit drew in a deep breath through his admirably straight nose which caused his equally admirable chest to expand while he narrowed his penetrating blue eyes at her and swept the dark blond hair from his forehead with one long-fingered hand. Aah…Chloe told herself that it was a perfectly rational female response to feel shaken, and stirred, by the display of so much masculinity.

‘Lady Chloe. We have moved from a proposal of marriage to the formation of the earth. Might we return to the former topic? Unless I misheard you?’

‘No, I did say it.’ Now was the time to blush prettily, but she had never mastered the art. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. You’re in a fix. You’ve known me for ever, so we might have formed an attachment.’

‘I can recall you as a child. You used to help James get around.’ Her brother had poor eyesight from an early age, but he’d never let it hold him back. ‘But since then? You are out, aren’t you?’

‘I am two and twenty,’ Chloe said. ‘I have had three Seasons and danced with you during all three.’ And you did a very good job of convincing me you were having a delightful time. ‘I did not take. I am much happier as a scientist.’

From Kit’s face she could see he was not at all surprised she had not taken. Had his charm when they had danced been simply good manners? He had been amusing, interested and…special when they had talked. Handsome, of course, but that was not why she had felt as she had. As I do. It was inexplicable, irrational, and somehow that had convinced her as nothing else would have done that she truly had lost her heart. An impossible daydream, of course, but at least she could help him out of this situation.

As Kit’s expression shifted from baffled to mildly pitying she tore her gaze from his face. ‘Where have I put those quills?’

‘The two in your hair?’

Oh Lord… Her spectacles slipped and Chloe looped them into the chain around her neck with one hand while she plucked out the quills with the other. Most of her hair came down.

‘Tell me, Lady Chloe…’ She found Kit standing right beside her. ‘…Why should you want to marry me?’ He lifted his hand and cupped her chin. His thumb brushed across the point, sending shivers down her spine and Chloe wondered what he would say if she told him the truth.

Because being yours is my dearest fantasy and now I can pretend, if only for a very little while?