Smuggler's Lady by Jane Feather Read Free Book Online Page B

dramatic action, this was it. With a whimper, she went completely limp, sinking to the ground, her skirt settling in a corolla around her.
    Rutherford swore violently, dropping in alarm to his knees beside the still figure. Her eyelashes fluttered as he lifted her in his arms. She was amazingly light under those folds of material, he noted even through his dismay at this unexpected turn of events.
    â€œI do beg your pardon,” she whispered in a faint voice. “So silly of me, my lord. Pray put me down.”
    â€œYou are sure you can stand?” he asked anxiously although the last thing he wanted was to have to carry an inert Lady Blake into the house. The fuss that would cause sent shudders of revulsion down his spine, and dimly he realized that somehow or other his attempt to avenge himself on the widow had recoiled.
    â€œQuite sure.” Her voice sounded stronger, her eyes opened. Clearly the prospect that dismayed him did not appeal to her either. “If you would just escort me back to the ballroom.”
    He set her on her feet. “I will take you to Lady Barrat. She will know what to do for you.”
    â€œThat will not be necessary, sir. I have these turns on occasion. I shall be perfectly all right directly.” Meredith gave her companion a hopefully reassuring smile. It was met with a speculative frown.
    â€œThey appear to come conveniently, ma’am,” Rutherford observed. The sudden flash in the sloe eyes confirmed his suspicion. Lady Blake had just neatly extricated herself from her predicament, and he had no choice but to beat a strategic retreat to plan an attack from another quarter. That he would return to the fight, Lord Rutherford was resolutely determined.
    He escorted her back to the ballroom and she disappeared instantly in the direction of the retiring room.
    â€œWill ye join us in the card room, Lord Rutherford?” Sir Algernon appeared at his side. “I’ve a splendid brandy you’ll enjoy. The Gentlemen do us proud.”
    â€œGladly,” Damian returned, remembering his other purpose in attending this horrendously cloddish evening. A little information about the Gentlemen might make up for his resounding defeat at the hands of the widow. “In a few minutes, if I may. I’ve a mind to clear my head in the garden.”
    â€œBy all means.” The squire clapped his lordship’s shoulder in a jovial gesture of comprehension. “ ’Tis monstrous close in here. Too many bodies and too much exertion to my mind.”
    â€œJust so,” Lord Rutherford concurred. The atmosphere in the ballroom was indeed becoming a trifle overpowering as the odors of sweat and perfume combined and the breath of the dancers misted the gilt-framed mirrors.
    Standing on the terrace, breathing deeply of the fresh night air, the strains of music wafting over his head, he wondered what the devil he was doing here in this barbaric corner of God’s earth where heavy pastry crusts enclosing a mélange of root vegetables and chopped meats were considered a delicacy, where young people romped indecorously and unsupervised, where frumpish widows made subtle mock of one of Wellington’s colonels and, unless he was much mistaken, made the same mock of her neighbors who seemed to have swallowed the act hook, line and sinker. More fool them! But why? Damian, Lord Rutherford, was determined to find the reason, just as he was determined to teach the widow that one did not play games with him—not with impunity. It was just possible that this excursion into Cornish society was going to prove rather more entertaining than he had imagined.

Chapter Four
    Meredith, having dabbed cold water on her wrists and temples and sufficiently recovered her composure, returned to the ballroom, determined to avoid further exchanges with Lord Rutherford at all costs. She had quite forgotten, in the general disturbance of the evening, to ask the Abbots for a place in