Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

to be like that. We weren’t always in charity with each other, but it’s only since the Craddocks came that we’ve all been set by the ears. I’ll wager there’ve already been some explosions since you arrived.”
    “One or two.”
    “What did I tell you?” Guy pulled a chair close to the fire and began toasting his wet boots. “Every night I’m in two minds about whether to dine here and see how the war goes on or escape to the village to avoid Aunt Catherine. Most of the time blind terror of Aunt Catherine keeps me away—that and all the temptations of the neighbourhood. Some of the local girls can be pretty agreeable, especially to anyone named Fontclair. Bless those old feudal traditions!”
    “Lady Tarleton asked after you this evening.”
    “The deuce! She only wants me at home so she can claw my head off whenever she’s in the mood. The one she’d really like to blow up is Mark Craddock, but she can’t, because everyone's under orders to get on with him, or pretend to. It's the damnedest thing, this marriage! I can't make head or tail of it. If all Uncle Robert wanted was for Hugh to bring a fat dowry into the family, there are plenty of other milch cows he could have lit on. Why Mark Craddock’s daughter?”
    “What is there about Craddock that puts everyone here in such a passion?”
    “What the devil, you might as well know the truth. It’s bound to come out anyway.” He leaned closer. “What do you suppose Craddock did for a living before he made his fortune in London?” “Something to do with horses?”
    “How did you know that?”
    “Just a guess.”
    “Well, here's something you won't guess so readily. He was a groom. The man worked in a stable! And which stable do you think it was? Ours—here at Bellegarde!”
    Julian's brows shot up. This was extraordinary. What on earth could have prompted Hugh to get engaged to the daughter of a former groom in his family's stables? No wonder Lady Tarleton was half mad with injured pride. No wonder the rest of the Fontclairs showed such a distaste for the marriage. And no wonder Guy was at a loss to fathom what lay behind it.
    “That must have been a long time ago,” he said at last.
    “Before I was born, or just after. Anyway, it was more than twenty years. He left under a cloud. Uncle Robert gave him the bag— though they say it was Aunt Catherine who was behind it. I'd give a monkey to know why. I like to think Craddock tried to ravish her in a hayloft, but it’s hard to believe even he would dare. Though she used to be good-looking when she was young. You'd never believe it now. But the colonel swears to it, and he's to be trusted about female charms.”
    “It wouldn't surprise me if she'd been very fetching as a girl."
    “Well, maybe, if you like that tigerish style. She was one of those wild girls, always tearing round the countryside on horseback and telling people to their faces exactly what she thought of them. Do you know, when she was hardly more than twenty, she went off to the Continent on some female version of the Grand Tour, with nobody to give her countenance but a duenna she could wrap around her little finger. Uncle Robert tried to stop her, but there's never been any holding Aunt Catherine back from what she wanted to do. By God, I can't abide that kind of female! I like women to be docile and come to heel—and if they don't, I make them sorry for it!"
    “I wonder you don't keep spaniels instead. Much easier, and less expensive."
    Guy stared at him, uncertain how to take this remark.
    Julian frowned. “How could Lady Tarleton have gone travelling on the Continent when she was young? Wouldn’t that have been in the midst of the wars with France?"
    “It was during some truce that went on for a year or so. When the fighting started up again, she came back to England, and soon •after that, she married Tarleton. God alone knows why. Except that he came of a family nearly as old as ours, and his rank was on a level