A Fine Passion by Stephanie Laurens Read Free Book Online Page A

He expected an apology, and she would have to give him one.
    Her customary expression of serene calm anchored in place, she nodded graciously. “My lord. No doubt we’ll meet again.”
    One brow quirked. His eyes cut to James, then he inclined his head. “Lady Clarice.” His hazel eyes recaptured hers; his lips lifted in a charming, wholly untrustworthy smile. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
    He bowed gracefully. She bit her lip on an acid retort and nodded in regal dismissal. She didn’t look his way as he left the room in James’s wake.
    She might have to eat crow, but she wasn’t about to do it in public, not even in front of James. Instinct warned that whatever concessions she was forced to make to appease Warnefleet would definitely be better kept between themselves.

Chapter 3
    J ack followed James out onto the rectory’s front lawn, a green and peaceful place surrounded by large trees.
    “I still enjoy my after-lunch constitutional.” James waved to a worn track circling the lawn; Jack fell in beside him. “Now, tell me all. ”
    Jack obliged, supplying the details he’d omitted earlier, those aspects of his activities during the Waterloo campaign of most interest to James. “And that, thank God, was the end. Once Napoleon was on his way to St. Helena, there was no need for any of us to remain in France.”
    “So you returned to the fray here. I take it you’re satisfied your inheritance is under control?”
    Jack nodded. “It took longer than I’d thought, but I’m happy with the new system we’ve instituted—it should allow me to manage the reins from here.” He looked around at the well-remembered vistas, noted how much the trees and shrubs had grown. He glanced at James. “Now you can brief me on all that’s happened here.”
    James smiled, and did, rattling through a potted history of the births, deaths, and marriages in the area, of those who’d moved away, and those who’d arrived to take their place. “As Griggs no doubt has told you, all your tenants are still in place. Avening village is much as it was, but…”
    Jack listened intently, committing much to memory; all that James let fall was information he needed to know.
    Eventually, however, James wound down, without revealing what Jack most wanted to know. He inwardly sighed, and remarked, “You’ve forgotten one major event—Lady Clarice. When did she arrive?”
    James grinned; they strolled on. “Two months after your father left us. Quite opportune, as it happened.”
    “Opportune?”
    “Well.” James grimaced. “Your father had always been the bulwark of village life. His word was law, not just in the legal sense but everyone about relied on his advice and even more his judgment—adjudication, if you will—in disputes large and small. People round about had grown to depend on him, and then suddenly he wasn’t there, and neither were you.”
    Jack glanced at him. “But you were here.”
    James sighed. “I fear, dear boy, that gaining a research fellowship from Balliol falls far short of giving one the expertise to step into your father’s shoes. By the time Clarice arrived, matters were well-nigh chaotic.”
    Jack hid a frown. “And she fixed things?”
    “Yes. Unlike me”—James smiled self-deprecatingly—“she’s been trained to the role.”
    Jack’s inward frown deepened. “She mentioned she was Melton’s daughter.” So what was she doing there?
    “Indeed. Melton, her father, was a cousin. My father was his father’s younger brother.”
    When James said nothing more, Jack kept his lips firmly shut, and simply waited….
    Eventually, James chuckled. “All right, although it all seems ancient history now. Clarice was Melton’s fourth child by his first wife, the only daughter of that union. Her mother, Edith, definitely ranked as a grande dame, a very forceful woman.”
    Presumably the source of Boadicea’s steel.
    “Edith died of a fever when Clarice was young. Four or five