Free Valentine by Jane Feather Page B

children have known each other from the nursery. For a long time I believed he and Theo would make a match of it, but for some reason they all put their heads together, and the next thing I knew, Edward and Emily were betrothed.” She smiled slightly. “I’m convinced it’s the right match, but I still don’t know what led the three of them to come to that conclusion with such amicable suddenness.”
    “And where is Mr. Fairfax?”
    “Lieutenant Fairfax. He’s with Wellington in the Peninsula,” she said, casting him a sideways glance. “You were also in the war, sir?”
    “Yes … and a prisoner of the French for a twelvemonth,” he replied shortly.
    She merely nodded. “So you dissuaded Theo from this combat, and she’s annoyed with you as a result.”
    “Actually, ma’am, she holds me in acute dislike.” He kicked a loose stone out of Lady Belmont’s path. “I’m at a loss to understand exactly what I could have done to cause it.”
    “Evidently you and Theo had met before you called yesterday.”
    “Yes … an unfortunate encounter,” he admitted. A deep frown corrugated his brow.
    Elinor glanced up at him as he walked beside her, adaptinghis natural impatient stride to her own strolling pace. It wasn’t easy for him, she reflected, sensing again that pent-up tension in the lean, powerful frame, the depths of pain within him. She couldn’t decide whether she liked him or not, but thought that she probably did … or at least would, on further acquaintance. She was very aware of his attraction, however, and wondered how Theo was managing to ignore it.
    “You should understand something about Theo,” she said matter-of-factly. “This house, the estate, the people are a part of her. It was the same for her father, and her grandfather. They mean everything to her, in a way that her sisters … and indeed, myself … can’t begin to identify with. She was her grandfather’s favorite. And she feels betrayed by him. You, sir, are an interloper. You’re taking from her something as important as the blood that flows in her veins.”
    Sylvester was silent, listening to the voice of conscience. Supposing he told this woman the truth … that none of them had been betrayed by the old earl—at least, not in the way they thought. But why should he, at the expense of his own future, put right the old man’s memory? He owed him nothing. The devious old man had created this mess … he’d set them all up.
    “But I’m willing to change that, Lady Belmont,” he said after a minute. “I’m offering your daughter the chance to stay here, to see this inheritance pass down to her own children.”
    “Yes, and it seems the perfect answer,” Elinor said, pausing to clip an unruly twig of box hedge with her secateurs. “But Theo may not see that just yet.”
    And
I
don’t have all the time in the world to persuade her.
He suppressed the irritable reflection and adjusted his stock, his long fingers restless in the linen folds as he asked abruptly, “Will you speak for me, ma’am?”
    Elinor paused on the path, regarding him steadily from beneath the wide brim of her straw gardening hat. Her voice was level but very definite. “No, Stoneridge. You must speak for yourself.”
    He made haste to retrieve his error. “I understand. Forgive the impertinence.” He bowed, touching his hat, his eyes rueful.
    She did like him, Elinor decided. And those crinkly lines around his eyes were most attractive. She smiled and patted his arm. “I don’t blame you in the least, sir. When it comes to Theo, a wise man marshals all the battalions he can.”
    “Then perhaps I should start marshaling,” he commented dryly.
    Elinor followed his eyes. Theo and Rosie were coming down the path toward them, their eyes on the ground. The child suddenly darted forward, falling to her knees in the flower bed beneath the box hedge. Theo squatted beside her.
    “Not more worms,” Elinor sighed. “Or is it snails now? I can never