Page 6 of The Heiress's Daughter
She paced up and down in front of the window, peering out at the street from time to time. Riding with Lord Randall’s cousin and her husband. Would Lord Randall come, too?
The sound of hooves clattering on cobblestones brought her to the window again, and she saw Lord and LadyFrobisher approaching. Lady Frobisher looked very dashing in a habit of vivid cherry red with silver lacings à la hussar.Her hat was pale gray felt and vaguely military looking, too, rather like a shako. Worn at a rakish angle, it looked very feminine with a long cherry red scarf floating behind, while three matching ostrich feathers curled coquettishly over her left ear.
Clarissa’s bosom was filled with envy. She’d been perfectly happy with her own neat outfit five minutes before, but now it seemed quite dull by comparison. She instantly decided she needed a new, smarter riding habit. And hat.
She hurried outside to join them, greeted them and glanced around. There was no sign of Lord Randall. Oh well. Her spirits sank a little.
“Race is lurking around the corner, like a villain in a melodrama,” Lady Frobisher said from the side of her mouth as Addis helped Clarissa mount her horse. “I adore the intrigue—rescuing the maiden from the seraglio—such fun!” she added as they moved off, her eyes dancing.
Clarissa laughed. “It’s not as bad as that. Lady Scattergood is very good to me. She’s just a little bit overprotective, that’s all. I’m still allowed to go places with my chaperone, but she doesn’t ride.”
Lady Frobisher gave her a skeptical glance. “Race told us he was barred from the house.”
Clarissa nodded wryly. “As are all single male visitors.”
Lady Frobisher pulled a face. “Ridiculous. How are you ever going to find a husband?” She glanced at her husband and smiled at him.
Clarissa caught his answering look. It was clear that Lord Frobisher doted on his vivacious wife.
“Oh, it’s not all single males who are not granted entry,” she explained. “Lady Scattergood seems quite happy to welcome some single gentlemen, as long as they are accompanied by a respectable lady—preferably a relative. And I cango places with my chaperone, and we have plenty of invitations to balls and parties. Single gentlemen not being allowed to enter the house alone is but a small inconvenience.”
“Race didn’t think so.”
“No, I’m sorry about that. But my brother-in-law, who’s also my guardian, will be back from his honeymoon in a few weeks, and everything will return to normal.”
“Have you heard from your sister?”
“No, not yet, but they’ve only been gone a short while.” They turned the corner and she saw Lord Randall waiting on Storm, his beautiful smoke gray gelding.
“Ah, there’s Race now,” Lady Frobisher said.
“Mmm.” For a few moments, Clarissa couldn’t say a thing. The sight of Lord Randall always left her briefly breathless. He was not precisely handsome, but she found him very arresting with his bold nose, firm chin, chiseled features and casually elegant bearing. On foot, she found his tall, lean frame and loose-limbed, easygoing bearing very attractive, but on horseback, he was even more impressive.
His white cravat and shirt emphasized the faint tan of his skin. It might not be fashionable for a gentleman to be tanned, but to Clarissa it only emphasized his masculinity and his love of the outdoors. Loving the outdoors herself, she appreciated a man who made no attempt to be fashionably pale.
His buff-colored waistcoat and beautifully cut dark blue coat showcased his lean build and the breadth of his shoulders. Fawn buckskin breeches hugged long muscular thighs, and his tan-topped black leather high boots gleamed with polish. He wore fawn pigskin gloves, and a smart curly-brimmed beaver covered his thick dark locks.
His gray eyes lit with faint amusement as they approached. “Well met, Miss Studley. I’m delighted you could join us.”
Feeling her cheeks warm, Clarissa dropped her gaze andmurmured a greeting. Somehow, whenever Lord Randall looked at her, she felt foolishly flustered. There was no reason for it, she knew. He didn’t mean to unsettle her—his behavior toward her was everything that was polite and gentlemanly—but for some reason his attention was…disconcerting.
It was his eyes, she thought. Gray eyes should be cold and hard, like her guardian Leo’s could be at times. But Lord Randall’s eyes seemed to dance with light and appeared—to her overactive imagination, at least—to contain an invitation, though to what she didn’t care to consider. And a man had no business having such long lashes.
He was a rake. Everybody said so, and she needed to take that to heart and stop these foolish fancies. Papa had been a rake, and he’d broken her mother’s heart with his callous infidelities. He’d made no attempt to hide them from her, but Mama had loved him anyway. Hopelessly.
Clarissa was a lot like her mother. Softhearted and susceptible, her sister Izzy often said, and Clarissa knew it was true.
And look at the damage Papa had caused to Izzy and her mother. Izzy was illegitimate—oh, it had turned out all right for her in the end, marrying Leo, but for a while they’d lived on a knife-edge. It could have turned out very differently. Illegitimacy was a slur that followed a person all their life. But did Papa care? No, he had carelessly seduced Izzy’s poor young mother—barely sixteen she’d been when he ruined, then abandoned her—shattering her life, and leaving a young girl and her baby daughter to face poverty and the condemnation of society.
A rake was a dangerous creature, no matter how charming and handsome he appeared. In fact, the more attractive he seemed, the more dangerous he must be. After all, the ability to charm foolish females was a rake’s stock-in-trade, and Clarissa needed to remember that.
Still, it had been thoughtful of him to invite her to go riding on this fine sunny morning, and then to go to the trouble of arranging for his cousin and her husband to collect her so Lady Scattergood would allow it. His unexpected consideration warmed her.
Chapter Two
They rode two by two through the busy London streets; Lord Randall and his cousin, then Clarissa with Lord Frobisher. Addis, the groom Leo employed for her protection, followed behind.
Lady Frobisher and Lord Randall talked and laughed—she was such a confident, vivacious person, Clarissa was a little envious. She always found it hard to make small talk to people she didn’t know very well. As a result, she felt so dull, which of course, made it even harder to think of things to say.
