AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 27
“You do not know where she has gone?” Marcus said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.
“No, I have no idea,” Sherborne said, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands. He calmed down too, breathing heavily as he shook the water out of his hair. “We argued. That was the last I spoke to her. I came back yesterday evening to hear from the butler that she had left in the morning. You do not know where she has gone then?”
“No,” Marcus said, turning round in a circle and scuffing the pebbles at the side of the lake with his damp shoes. “We argued as well. She…revealed who she was.”
His words made Sherborne look up from where he was, pinning Marcus with a keen gaze.
“And?”
“And what?”
“And what happened then?”
“What do you mean what happened?” Marcus said, holding out his arms. “I was too stunned, too surprised to be able to understand what was going on in front of me. When she kissed me, I still thought she was Mr Blake—”
“She kissed you?” Sherborne said.
“Yes.”
“And you pushed her off?”
“Yes.”
“Ha!” The sudden laugh that came out of Sherborne made Marcus freeze, feeling his anger begin to return.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“You had a woman devoted to you, kissing you, and you pushed her off?” Sherborne said. “You may be a lord, but you are still a fool.”
Marcus couldn’t answer, for he had nothing to argue against it. He turned away and looked toward the lake. It was the same lake where he had gone swimming, the time when she had insisted that she had a phobia of swimming and could not go in with him. No wonder she couldn’t do it, out of fear that he would see who she really was.
His mind went wandering of its own accord. He started wondering what could have happened if she had revealed who she really was that day. She could have thrown off her men’s cap and the jacket, followed by the cravat and the waistcoat, then the shirt. He had traced well enough the day he had first met her, those slim curves beneath the dress. Perhaps she had bound her breasts to hide her figure.
He pictured what it could have been like to help her out of that binding until she was bare for him to see, with soft, delicate skin tantalising to the touch. He could picture drawing the breeches down over her legs, tracing his fingers over the exposed skin until she shivered with excitement at his touch, then drawing her forward into the water, though he had other plans beyond swimming for them to share.
“My lord?” Sherborne’s voice snapped Marcus out of the imagining, and he looked back round to the valet. “Did you send her away?”
“No, I did not,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “I just needed time to think. By the time I’d got my head sorted enough to speak to her again, she had gone.”
Sherborne muttered a few curse words under his breath, words that Marcus was only too happy to agree with.
“I need to talk about this more.”
“I need to change,” Sherborne said, throwing his other sodden boot to the ground.
“Well, you need to dry off,” Marcus said in thought, “and I have no wish to go back to the house just yet.”
“Why not?” The perceptive question made Marcus look to the valet with lifted eyebrows. “A lady there you do not wish to see now?”
“You could say that,” Marcus said with feeling. “There’s a tavern in the village not far from here. They’ll have a fire for you to dry off by.”
“They’re going to let me in looking like this?” Sherborne said, gesturing down at his wet clothes.
“They won’t refuse us when asking for drinks. I’m Lord Northrive, remember. If I ask them to let you in, they will do,” Marcus said, beckoning Sherborne to his feet. “Come on, we’ll have that drink and something to eat. Then you can tell me everything you know about Lady Violette.”
“Don’t you know enough by yourself?” Sherborne asked, putting his boots back on as Marcus collected the reins of the horse from the tree branches.
