The Scarred Earl by Elizabeth Beacon Read Free Book Online Page B

together for enchantment. The whole mad business had shaken Persephone’s confidence in her own cool judgement and well-guarded heart. If Jack and Jessica could fall so comprehensively in love with each other, nobody was safe from the malady.
    Well, almost nobody. She really couldn’t imagine the Dowager Duchess of Dettingham falling in love, even in her salad days. The unlikelihood of her grandmother considering the world well lost for love made Persephone smile ruefully, then curse her abstraction when she realised she was beaming idiotically at the Earl of Calvercombe as if he were the light of her life. Berating herself for a fool, she frowned fiercely at him, then felt a prickle of what must be fear run up her spine when he seemed to read her confusedthoughts and flashed a crooked smile of understanding at her. He was far too dangerous to exchange perceptive glances with and she told herself to look away when there was any danger of him looking back at her from now on.
    The chambermaids of all the inns from here to London who’d been gifted one of Lord Calvercombe’s devil-as-angel smiles must spend their working days yearning for him to come by and lavish another on them. She told herself she was made of far stronger stuff and tried not to wonder if his lordship currently kept a mistress to charm and seduce and puzzle. No point wondering how it felt for the unfortunate female to have such intense masculine attention concentrated solely on her.
    He was such a self-contained puzzle of a man the poor woman was probably left to yearn and yawn the days away until he felt the need of her so strongly he would lavish all his passion and attention on her once more, for as long as she could hold his restless attention. Then he would be off back to his splendid isolation until next time. Glad she would never need to charm, caress and fawn on a man to know there would be foodon the table or clothes to render her decent, she shot the object of her half-furious speculations what she hoped was a coldly quelling look.
    On the hill above Ashburton New Place the observer snapped his telescope back into its case and let his fist tighten into betraying fury. He was alone up here, after all, and could afford to reveal his feelings for once. The original baron who built Ashbow Castle on this patch of high ground would despise the Seabornes as fools for letting themselves be overlooked like this, but the watcher knew it was a deliberate statement of power. The Tudor pirate who had made his fortune at sea under Good Queen Bess’s flag, if not exactly at her direct order, sited his new mansion on the side of the valley precisely because nobody dared challenge him at the heart of his ill-gotten estates. The whole breed of Seabornes were so arrogant they considered themselves beyond the reach of their enemies, but he was here to prove them wrong.
    Up here on the defensible ground others had fought over for generations before the Seabornes claimed it he seemed face to facewith failure. A vantage point was useless when the enemy wouldn’t emerge from hiding to give battle. He longed for the lawless days when a rival lord and his army could camp up here while they destroyed the arrogant Seabornes to every last man.
    Taking a deep breath to steady himself, to fight off a reckless, cleansing fury at the thought of all he wanted being ripped away from him, he slunk back into the cover of the trees. Forcing himself to watch the nauseating spectacle of the Seabornes joyously en fête for so long had all been for nothing, he concluded bitterly. Richard Seaborne had stayed away from his cousin’s nuptials and outfoxed him once again. Overcoming the need to lash out at something to relieve his frustration, he forced a mask of calm on to his face and strolled along as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Experience had taught him that the man who looked as if he didn’t care if he was seen or not was less noticeable than the one slinking along