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Authors: Sherry Lynn Ferguson

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BOOK: Major Lord David
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The question was much to the point; he had masterfully
called her father’s bluff in asking. Sir Moreton responded
with silence. Billie had an insight as to just how keen and purposeful an officer David Trent must be, the more so when
his gaze settled on her with a marked decrease in warmth. He
must have deduced, correctly, that she was the obstacle to
clarity in this matterthat she was the one delaying an answer, weighing his offer in the balance, holding his feet to the
fire. She was determined to speak with him first.

He tried another tack. Once her brothers returned to their
seats and the carriage was again rolling, Lord David let one of
his boots rest casually against her skirts. Billie glared at him
and attempted to shift her position, but she was squeezed to
the side of the bench by her father and Morty, and the major’s
legs were indisputably long.

She wanted to ignore so slight a contact, to act as though it
were accidental, but by avoiding his gaze she knew she acknowledged it. She focused on the scenery outside. The snow
had resumed. They had already spent almost two hours traveling a distance that usually required less than one; her impatience for the trip to end found relief in occasional soundless
sighs.

When the major’s other knee touched her skirt, she glanced
at him, prepared to utter a rebuke. But he was now slouched
against the seat back, his arms crossed over his chest and his
eyes closed in sleep. Next to her, her father had succumbed to
the same state of oblivion. That the men could doze in such
uncomfortable circumstances amazed her.

Edward was peacefully reading Lord David’s Greek text.

Billie studied David’s features. Last night he had reminded
her too starkly of her foolishness as a youngster. At age
twelve, intending to shoot him with “Cupid’s dart,” she had
most accurately sent an arrow flying from ambush-straight
to David Trent’s shoulder. She vividly recalled Kit’s triumphant
yell, how David had reeled and tumbled from his horse, her
own stunned horror at his too-real pallor. They had knelt by
his side and watched numbly as the blood pooled upon his
shirt. He had hissed to them to fetch Rawlinson, the old stable master, and Kit had scrambled up upon David’s horse and ridden away like the very devil. But Billie had been left to face
David’s accusing stare.

“You … did this?” he had asked. And then he’d sworn at
her, repeatedly and incomprehensibly in French, before his
swoon had spared her.

Within minutes help had arrived from Braughton. She and
Kit had been sent home, to wait in fear of a reckoning that
never arrived. Word had reached them that Lord David survived the ordeal. Billie had trusted and prayed that he would,
but she’d had no opportunity to apologize. In the subsequent
year she had seen him only twice more, and then only from a
distance. He had left for war on the Peninsula without a word
from her.

Last night he’d claimed the shoulder still pained him in the
cold. She wondered if it troubled him now in the snow. The
wound must have inconvenienced him all the long years at
war. And as her pensive gaze left his shoulder and rose again
to his face, she caught the steady scrutiny in his.

He was not asleep, if he had ever been, and both his boots
now neatly bracketed her cloaked skirts in a manner that was
simply not acceptable.

Billie managed to turn one of her ankles and bring the pressure of her instep down atop his toes. With his grimace she
had to believe that, had he thought to play with her or to play
upon her guilty sympathies, he must now consider himself
corrected.

“At last,” Morty muttered as they entered the drive to the
manor. “We might almost have walked it in this time.”

“Some of us might have been limping by now though, Mr.
Caswell.” His gaze on hers, David sat up farther, carefully removing his boots from her reach.

Billie could not stop her smile. She looked out the window.
She dared not glance at him again, for fear she might laugh
outright.

When they drew up to the house, Morty moved to unlatch
the door facing the front and the waiting footman. But the major swiftly opened the door opposite and, leaping out sans the
step, pulled Billie out the far side. Before her startled senses
could recover, he had pressed his lips to hers. With equal
speed he put her away from him.

He easily parried her raised, open palm. “We are betrothed,”
he told her smoothly.

“You are mistaken!”

“Then you must say so, Billie Caswell.”

She swallowed and raised her chin. She could hear her father and brothers mounting the steps to the house.

“What happened to `querida’?” she challenged.

He brought his face very close to hers once more.
“`Querida’ is still there, if you wish it. But take care how you
punish a man, Miss Caswell. It must be proportionate to the
offense”

He stepped away from her to the back of the carriage and
moved to free his horse.

“What are you about there, Lord David?” her father called
from above. “You must come along inside here for some dinner.”

“I think I’d best be getting back, Sir Moreton, before the
weather grows much worse”

“Enjoy a meal, my lord, and let your horse be cared for. The
snow is nothing to speak of.”

Billie thought her father had not sounded half so pleasant
all day; at home he was making an effort at courtesy. Yet she
wished they need no longer play at propriety. That David
Trent should think she punished him was galling. Surely having been forced to offer at all had been the punishment.

She had walked on up to her father’s side. Let him go, she
silently urged him. Please, just let him go. Her gaze as cold as
she could muster, she willed the major to be on his way. They might talk another time. But the perverse man seemed to delight in crossing her.

“Well, then,” he said, his smile provoking. “Perhaps for an
hour or two, sir. And we might finish discussing our business.”

They stomped into the hall. Billie was relieved to find it
presentable this evening, not-as seemed too frequent of
late-redolent of damp or of Morty’s hounds or stale tobacco.
Still, she remained uneasy, for the major’s last comment had
sounded like a threat. She thought he must mean to move forward with an engagement, as mad as such a course might be.

At least her father had no desire to leap abruptly into discussion of dowries.

“You’ll excuse me, my lord,” he said gruffly, as Tate came
forward to take their coats. “My wife will be most anxious to
see me.”

“Certainly, sir.” As Lord David was relieved of his greatcoat, he subjected the hall to such close regard that Billie chose
to feel defensive. Her father made his way upstairs, leaving the
major to Billie and her brothers.

“How long has Lady Caswell been ill?” he asked.

“Forever,” Edward mumbled, shrugging out of his own coat.
“Or seems like.”

“You might recall it, Trent,” Morty said sharply, “as the last
visit she made was to Braughton eight years ago”

“I regret I do not remember, Mr. Caswell. Do you blame
that visit for her subsequent indisposition?”

Morty flushed to his ears. “Not at all. Just meant-that was
the last time she went calling, is all.”

“I am sorry to hear it. She does not improve?”

“She has her good days-and many more bad,” Edward
said glumly. “If you’ll pardon me, Major, I have some translations… “And he departed, followed precipitously by Morty,
who mumbled about seeing to necessary correspondence before dinner. Morty seemed eager to avoid the overwhelming
responsibility of acting as host in his own home. Or else he
had properly gauged that David Trent too frequently outwitted him.

The major smiled at Billie just as she felt most acutely her
family’s rude desertion.

“You must pardon them, my lord. They are not..” she attempted. “They are not usually so thoughtless.”

“We are all at ease in our own homes, Miss Caswell,” he offered smoothly, making a shallow bow, “and it has been a tiring day. I know ‘tis merely an oversight that we should have
been left alone.”

“They trust me,” she countered. “Would you imply they
should not trust you?”

“We shall see”

His small smile disconcerted her. She turned to Tate and
asked him to have a maid start the fire in the drawing room.
She felt the major’s gaze as she made the request. Her effort
to supplement their company must have been all too obvious.

“You study my home, Major,” she said, lifting her chin a
fraction as she showed him into the drawing room. “You find
fault with it?”

“On the contrary, Miss Caswell. All is order and comfort.
The opposite of what I should have expected of a household of
men-men left so long in want of Lady Caswell’s influence. I
credit you, young as you are, with meeting the challenge.”

She felt the color in her cheeks and turned away. “Dinner
will be at least an hour, Major. Would you care for some refreshment beforehand?”

“Coffee would be welcome, thank you” As Billie arranged
for a tray, the major wandered to the piano and idly pressed several keys. “Do you play, Miss Caswell, or was this your
mother’s instrument?”

“Both,” she said. “‘Tis still my mother’s, and I play it. Mama
insisted that I claim at least one of a lady’s accomplishments.”

“She must be pleased then-that you claim many.”

To contain another blush, she stared him straight in the
eyes. “No doubt you practiced such flummery in Paris, my
lord.”

“I had little time in Paris to practice much of anything, Miss
Caswell. Lately I’ve spent too much time traveling, including
three trips between Paris and Vienna in as many months. The
winter has been a harsh one. ‘Twas not the holiday you envisage.” Again he pressed his fingers to the keys. “Will you play
something?”

“I am not very good”

“I should imagine you are exceptionally good.”

The compliment disconcerted her. However lightly proffered, it was welcome and somehow restorative. Her family
was prone to tease rather than to commend; even their urging
her at this man, even their insistence on a betrothal, was an
extension of all the teasing. After all, such a tie was what she
had always claimed to want, for as long as she had known of
David Trent.

“Perhaps later,” she said, looking away from him.

“Then, as we’ve been granted this bit of privacy, you might
instead answer two questions for me” When her attention returned to him, he asked bluntly, “Why should you continue
with this? And why should you resist a season?”

“I do not resist a season! In fact, our plans for a visit to
town are well along. My father only meant, in the carriage,
that now you might have some say in whether we go or not”

“One assumes that if you were welcoming a season, you are
not averse to marriage?”

“Of course I am not `averse to marriage’ ! I object only to
compelling you-”

“And so I ask my first question for a second time-why
should you allow me so much of a claim? Last night we did
nothing so irredeemable, certainly nothing to warrant such an
extreme response. My offer was proper but not entirely necessary. Our fathers know as much. They are not so Gothic in
their notions as to press you, however much they feel I might
owe. If you did not want this to go forward, it would not”

“But they know you kissed me…

“Hardly.”

“Hardly?”

“‘Twas a mere suggestion. You found that slight attempt
sufficient?”

“Sufficient?”

He smiled at her, though his gaze remained watchful.

“Major Trent,” she continued coldly, “I will leave you to
your coffee.”

She turned to go, but at his low and serious, “Billie,” she
turned.

“Do not leave,” he went on. “Forgive me. I forget you are still
very young”

“I shall be nineteen in March”

“As I said” He smiled. “Now do stay. Because I think you
must explain yourself. We will not have many opportunities-”

“I must explain, but you needn’t?”

“Oh, I am easily understood.” Again that smile held her. “I
danced with a beautiful stranger on New Year’s Eve and
yielded to overwhelming impulse. Though the yielding may
have been unwise, there is little incomprehensible in it. I
wished to kiss you and endeavored to do so. Absent an interruption, I should have been more thorough.” He studied her
furious complexion. “I cannot plead a lack of interest, though
I confess matrimony was far from my mind. For your part-it
is not gallant of me to mention, I know-you did accompany
me last night.” Before she could protest, he added, “Nevertheless, you might now claim almost anything shy of abduction and be believed. Equally, as the injured party, you might snap
your fingers and have done with this business. I will do as I
must, should you desire it. But do you desire it? I should like
to understand. I am too blunt a fellow to play at absurdities.”

“You are indeed `blunt,’ Major.”

“I am trained to it, Miss Caswell. ‘Tis preferable to misunderstandings, or retreat.”

BOOK: Major Lord David
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