Free Pursuing Lord Pascal by Anna Campbell

leaped down. At their arrival, ducks and geese on
the pond took noisy flight. “You really want to know?”
    “I really want to know.”
    He came around the horses’ heads and helped
her down. “Very well.”
    “Go on,” she said, and because he’d behaved
all afternoon—something she had no right to resent—she let him tuck
her hand into the crook of his arm. His warmth seeped into her,
inevitably reminding her of kissing him last night. How contrary
was she to want that again, when she was the one who forbade
physical contact?
    “No brothers and sisters.” He started along
the earthen path beside the water, matching his long stride to her
shorter one. The fine weather meant the ground underfoot was
mercifully dry. “My mother was a great beauty, but an inconstant
wife. She soon decided Northumberland was too dull to be borne and
fled back to London, while my father, who was a countryman at
heart, stayed at home with his sheep.”
    “Sheep can be wonderful company,” Amy said,
as she sifted what he said.
    She was curious. His mother’s desertion
didn’t seem to anger him. Instead, he spoke with fond tolerance, as
if he knew she couldn’t help herself. Very mature, but Amy couldn’t
imagine he’d felt that way as a child.
    “So I discovered. I rattled around the chilly
manor house with Papa, until I went to Harrow at eight, forsaking
my ovine chums.”
    He spoke wryly, but this time, she wasn’t
fooled. “It must have been lonely.”
    Self-derision flattened his lips. “School was
full of decent chaps. I was fine, once I got there.”
    She frowned. Did this mean that he loathed
country life? If he did, he’d never be content with her. “What
about your mother? What happened to her?”
    “When she realized her son was almost as
pretty as she was, she allowed me to come to London a few weeks a
year. That was always great fun. But Papa didn’t want his heir
exposed to the feckless crowd my mother ran with.”
    Still moving at his side, Amy stared blindly
across the pond to the trees beyond. Silly to grieve over that
bleak, loveless childhood. Pascal had been torn between parents who
were clearly a poor match.
    Amy had already noted his complex
relationship with his extraordinary looks. That ambivalence must
have started when his mother used her son as a prop to her vanity.
“What was your father like?”
    “A good man. Much older than my mother.
You’ve probably gathered it wasn’t a harmonious union. They had
little in common.”
    “Except you.” Their quiet conversation had
persuaded the birds it was safe to return to the ponds.
    “Except me. He was kind in his fashion,
although he had no real idea how to manage a child. I think we were
both relieved when I went away to school. He died when I was
twelve.” The soft thud of Pascal’s boots created a gentle
counterpoint to this sad history.
    “I can guess Harrow wasn’t altogether easy.”
In wordless comfort, Amy squeezed his arm. Two brothers and
numerous Nash cousins gave her an idea of what little savages boys
could be. “You’ve forbidden any mention of your appearance, but I
imagine a beautiful blond boy had trouble with bullies.”
    When he slowed to a stop, she slid her hand
free and turned to face him. They stood near a reed bed where a
warbler sang for a mate. The sweet music rang out across the cool
spring air.
    Pascal sent her an unreadable look. “I had
the odd fight. I needed toughening up.”
    Amy didn’t comment on what she knew must be a
rank understatement. She was too busy trying to hide her appalled
reaction to the revelations about his barren family life. He’d
loathe her pity.
    He looked like he had everything the world
could give. Yet he’d lacked something as basic as a mother’s love.
He might still be a stranger, but his pain tore a jagged crack in
her heart.
    “Is your mother still alive?” It was an
effort to steady her voice.
    “She died fifteen years ago when her lover’s
yacht went down off the Isle