The Revenge of Lord Eberlin by Julia London Read Free Book Online

stay away from me and mine!” She whirled around, marching toward her house.
    Tobin watched her go in, ushering Miss Taft before her. The butler wasted no time in shutting the door at her back. The rain was falling harder, but Tobin scarcely noticed it. His body was hard from tension and desire. His fist was clenched, and his breathing labored. He made himself turn away and mount his horse, then spurred it to a run, pulling his hat low over his eyes to keep the rain from them.
    Lily Boudine was bloody beautiful.
    More was the pity.

FOUR

     
    L ily was still outraged as she marched Lucy into the library to find out how the girl had come to be in that man’s presence. “Foolish girl!” Lily scolded her and wrapped her arms tightly around her. “Where did you go? Where have you been?”
    “I didn’t want my music lesson. I went for a walkabout in the woods,” Lucy said into her chest.
    Lily let Lucy go, leaning back to have a look at her. “A walkabout ? And why didn’t you tell anyone?”
    The girl looked contrite. “I wanted to tell you, mu’um, but there was no one about and Linford said you’d gone into the village. I didn’t think there was any harm.”
    “Well, there was,” Lily said. “Look at the rain! You might have caught your death.”
    “That’s what Count Eberlin said as well when he made me come home,” Lucy said morosely.
    Lily exchanged a look with Mr. Fish, who stoodquietly across the room. Lily waited for Lucy to say more, but she merely fidgeted with her sash. Lily put her arm around Lucy’s slender shoulders, then smoothed her mussed blonde hair from her face. “Darling, you must have a care. Not everyone you may meet is kind, and Eberlin especially not! Have I not warned you about him?”
    “But he was kind to me.”
    Dear God. Lily led Lucy to a divan and sat her down. “Where did you happen upon him? In the park?”
    Lucy shook her head. “In the woods.”
    “The woods! What on earth were you doing in the woods?”
    “I only went to the cottage!” Lucy cried. “I’ve been there lots before—”
    “What cottage?”
    “The one by the river. By the church that’s falling down. It’s boarded up, and part of the roof has come down. But there are two chairs and a cat that lives inside, and sometimes I go round to see that he’s fed. He likes rotten potatoes, can you imagine?”
    Uppington Church. Lily knew it well. There was hardly anything left of the church. The cottage on its grounds had been abandoned many years ago, and Lily had played there as a child, pretending it was a castle, and she its chatelaine. The memory gave her a curious twist in her belly; she suddenly recalled her aunt Althea standing in the foyer of Ashwood, smiling brightly, telling Lily to go on with Tobin and play.Behind her, Mr. Scott, looking so admiringly at her aunt …
    Lily closed her eyes a moment to banish the image. “Was Eberlin in the cottage, Lucy?” She wondered if he remembered their excursions to Uppington Church. She did. She remembered him vividly.
    Lucy shook her head again. “No, mu’um. He hadn’t gone as far as that. He was sitting on a rock. I think he was weeping.”
    Weeping?
    “He was sitting on a rock thus,” Lucy said, perching on the edge of the divan and propping her elbows on her knees. “And his head was down just so,” she said, and put her hands on either side of her head. “I saw him, but he didn’t see me. He took great gulps of air and I thought perhaps he was sad, and I said, are you weeping? And he looked at me strangely and said he was not, that he was quite all right, and that I would catch my death and I was to go home at once, and then he asked where I lived, and I told him I lived here with you, but that I would leave for Ireland soon, for the first countess wishes to adopt me and make me Irish, just like her, and he said he should take me because it was too far to walk before it rained. I didn’t want to go, because I do not care for horses,