Page 5 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
“Thank you. I will.”But you can’t.
Chapter Three
His sister waslate.
Clive paced the drawing room floor. Terese was to have arrived from London at four or five o’clock at the latest. Now, at seven forty, she was very late. Most unlike her.
He went to the window once again. His worries about Terese vied with his concern he had about the lady who stayed next door—and whom he could see had stood outside now for more than twenty minutes beneath a hotel brazier lamp.
Madame Laurant was unmistakable in the darkening gloom. What in hell was she doing standing out in that storm? Alone, no less. And at night. She had stood there amid louder and louder thunder. With each shocking crack across the sky, her shoulders hunched.
Rain pattered suddenly against his window. She huddled in her short pelisse as she searched the wide thoroughfare before her. Was she meeting someone? It seemed so.
At once, in a fierce downpour, the rain came. She did not move. Did not seek shelter. Was her need to meet this person so dire that she would risk a complete drenching?
God knew, she’d had enough this morning when she plunged into the sea to save his Bella.
Lightning zagged across the horizon.
Clive had the instinctive urge to run downstairs and throw herover his shoulder. Anything to get her out of the deluge and into shelter.
But he could not do any of that, could he? She was not his to save.
“Not tonight,” he told himself, and finished the dram of whisky he’d poured.
In truth, he ought not be so worried about her. She was merely an acquaintance. Her welfare—indeed, her health after her dash into the ocean—should not concern him so deeply. But his mother had suffered from inflammation of the lungs, and he knew the toll a sudden chill could take. Especially on so slight a figure as the exquisite Madame Laurant.
Admit it. Your preoccupation with her is more than for her health or her quick response to save Bella.True, he could not push aside his questions about why she was now in Brighton—and why she’d been in Richmond near his house, so near he could see her from his hilltop study window down to the shore of the flowing Thames. She was the artist whom he had seen so many times through his binoculars. No other woman moved with such grace and alacrity. She certainly resembled that woman, her wealth of ink-black hair, her delicate bone structure as she stood viewing the sea. She had to be the same woman, the same artist, who had told villagers that she had to leave Richmond for Dover and Hastings.
Why did she travel so much? Was she eluding someone, something?
He laughed at that absurdity. She was no criminal, escaping the long arm of a Bow Street officer.
He shifted, his nerves clamoring at that disastrous possibility.No.She did not have the look of someone who stole, or worse. Yet she was wary. Of what or whom? He saw her skepticism when she had looked around them on the beach. Had she expected someone to be there?No.No, she had relaxed after she looked around and found no one.
He’d love to ask her whom she expected, whom she did not care for. But he could not ask her any of that. He would have to know her better to be so intrusive—and he had little chance of that. When he had probed, even slightly, she had been short with him. So there was that.
He took a drink. He was foolish to focus on her.
Terese was his finer concern—and truth was, she was never late. It was a family trait: She prided herself on her promptness and had trained her staff to follow her lead. But travel from London could present problems. Lame horses, lost carriage wheels, or unskilled grooms could all make any journey a misery. Terese’s town carriage and her London-stabled horses were always in tip-top order. Her stable hands were expert, too.
But there was little he could do about her arrival. He’d hope and pray she’d met no calamities. If he heard nothing by noon tomorrow, he would hire a Bow Street Runner and send him out to find her. She usually stopped in Crawley when she came to Brighton, so Clive had that to go on. For now, he would just have to wait for Terese to breeze in, as she always did, like a hurricane.
His gaze drifted across the room to his daughter. Rather than wait any longer for Terese, he’d ring for supper to be sent up for him. He’d have a treat of cake sent up for Bella, who had eaten her supper earlier. He hated eating like a monk in his room, but what could he do? Children did not sup with adults, anywhere, ever, except at home. But he was hungry and she needed to have her dessert and retire—and soon. Bella was happy at the moment. Sitting in the wing chair drawing with her stubby pencil, she pressed her little lips together in concentration. She was a blonde beauty.Like her mother.
He spun away from that memory.
Where was the bellpull? Hands on his hips, he gazed around the cozy salon. Usually, a hotel put its pulls in the main rooms. Near windows and draperies. Often near large pieces of furniture like thetwo credenzas on the far wall. But he’d be darned if he could find it.
Perhaps his bedroom? He strode in and poked around.No.
Bella’s?
Not there either.
What to do?
He winced, hating to disturb Bella to take her downstairs.
