Jane Feather by Engagement at Beaufort Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

Charles shows some courteous restraint when it comes to exercising his hunting rights and paying neighborly visits.”
    The long case clock in the hall struck noon and she dropped her brother’s letter on a low table. “Oh Lord, is it that late?” She moved to the door. “I must change for lunch. Aren’t we expecting the Collins sisters with their mother?” It was a rhetorical question. “If Zoe turns up before I’m down, let me know,” she added as she whisked herself out of the morning room.
    She went up to her room, her mind whirling. Why would Charles buy the next-door estate after what had happened between them? It made no sense at all. Unless it did . . .
    She rang for her maid, frowning. Was it possible Charles thought he could rekindle things between them by this proximity? She untied the scarf and tossed it with her hat onto the dresser. He couldn’t possibly wish to have anything further to do with her after her humiliating rejection. You didn’t jilt a man almost at the altar, leaving him the laughingstock of London society, and then find him knocking at your door the next minute asking for forgiveness.
    But perhaps it wasn’t forgiveness he wanted. Perhaps it was revenge. She turned as her maid entered the room. “Daisy, I need to change for lunch. The green taffeta, I think.” She dropped her coat on the bed and unbuttoned her jacket and the silk blouse beneath it. Revenge. It would be a perfect torment to have Charles living next door, never knowing from one day to the next when she was likely to bump into him.
    She stepped out of her gray wool skirt. In company, she would have to treat him with impeccable courtesy, however distant her manner. But how could she maintain that distance when just being in the same room with him made her blood run fast? And that morning she hadn’t known whether she wanted to shoot him or kiss him. Had he guessed that? Had he felt her reaction to his sudden appearance? But of course he had. And he would know that the confusion she would feel and the restraint she would have to exercise at the sight of him were going to be sheer torture.
    A grim smile hovered over her mouth. It was the perfect revenge, and Charles would relish every moment of it. So, how to defeat it?
    “Will you change your stockings, Miss Imogen?” Daisy stood in front of an open dresser drawer. Woolen stockings were all very well for tramping the forest in boots, but they wouldn’t do with a taffeta afternoon gown.
    “Yes, a pair of the silk ones, please, Daisy.” She sat on the dresser stool and peeled off her woolen stockings, handing them to Daisy and taking the silk pair in return. Daisy, who had been Imogen’s maid from the moment she had left the schoolroom, recognized her mistress’s preoccupation and made no attempt to chat as she might ordinarily have done.
    Charles was after revenge. How to turn it to her advantage?
    The question absorbed Imogen as she stood still while Daisy buttoned the green taffeta afternoon dress. The heavy mass of brown hair, the color of dark treacle, was plaited into a thick chignon set high on her head and confined with a dark green velvet ribbon. Involuntarily she remembered how Charles loved to unpin her hair, very slowly, letting it fall into a rich cascade down her naked back. He would brush it with long, sweeping strokes, until the lighter highlights in the dark strands shone like liquid honey. She shook her head briskly, trying to dispel the unsettling memory of what always followed the hair brushing. Those mad, passionate tangles in the big bed through long sensual afternoons . . .
    If she was going to have to spend time in his company, she was going to have to learn to banish such memories as if they never existed.
    “That’s perfect, thank you, Daisy.” She smiled at the maid as she rose from the dresser stool. “Miss Esther and I are dining quietly tonight, so I won’t need your help to dress for dinner. Why don’t you go and visit your