Free The Wicked Guardian by Vanessa Gray Page A

Choate. But the thought that he would consider such an action as juvenile was distinctly lowering. Perhaps he was right!
    The squeeze at the door gave her the chance that she had, without knowing it, been looking for. She eased away from Benedict’s hand on her elbow and allowed someone—Mrs. Morton?—to intrude between her and her escort. And in a moment she had made her escape in the crowd.
    Seeing in the distance Sir Alexander, taller than most of the men, peering nearsightedly around the room, doubtless in search of her, Clare edged away in the opposite direction. Suddenly she found herself in front of a window that came to the floor, and stood ajar. The welcome thought of fresh cool air drew her like a magnet, and she eased the window open sufficiently to pass through.
    She was outside the house. Carlton House, since the Prince of Wales had set up his separate establishment in 1783, had undergone transforming changes. She was not aware of all the building, the restoring that had taken place after the dowager princess had departed, leaving the house in sad condition, according to Sir Alexander.
    But she was fully sensible of the magical quality which pervaded the gardens and grounds. Beyond her sight, now, in the darkness, were flowerbeds under the great old elms, statues of varied description, a waterfall, a temple with a floor of Italian marble, in the Florentine fashion, and, she remembered hearing, an observatory, where the regent fancied himself an astronomer.
    Now there were flambeaux beyond counting glimmering in the dark, marking the walks, illuminating—but not too brightly—marble benches in the shelter of blooming shrubs that scented the air.
    If Clare had thought about paradise, she decided, she would have eventually come to imagine just such a place as this. The cool air refreshing on her hot cheek, the soft luminosity of the artificial lights, from far off the strains of sweet music, and nearer at hand little bursts of muted voices.
    And, below the terrace where she stood, looking up at her with admiring laughter in his face, stood Harry Rowse.
    “Stand there,” he advised her, “while I drink my fill of the sight. A veritable marble maiden, a beauty from another world.”
    A small part of her mind suggested that Harry Rowse should be thoroughly snubbed. But another part of her mind, fortified by resentment against Lord Choate’s overbearing superiority, and irritated by his assumption that she hardly knew how to go on, overruled, and she stepped to the marble balustrade and smiled back at Harry.
    “If you call Dorset another world,” she said, “then you are right. But not otherwise, I fear.”
    He appeared to consider. “I think we need to discuss this,” he said, amusement in his voice. “Shall I come up, or will you come down?”
    She had no illusions about Benedict. He would not take it kindly that she had strayed before he could bring her safely to Lady Thane. She realized that the first place he would search for her was right here on the terrace. “I’ll come down,” she told Harry.
    He held his hand up to help her down the last broad steps that led between rock gardens to the graveled walk below. Once on the walk, she withdrew her hand from his, and, she noted with gratitude, he did not try to hold it. In fact, as they strolled away from the building, down the walk leading farther into the gardens, he put himself out to be amusing. There were other couples and groups on the path, coming and going, and surely, Clare thought, there could be no criticism of her strolling in company with anyone she chose, even Harry Rowse.
    He was, she knew, a gambler and a rake, but he was hanging out for a rich wife, so everyone said, to mend his fortunes, and she was clearly not suitable. So she set herself to enjoy his company—frankly admiring, and in sharp contrast to that of the forbidding nobleman she had eluded.
    “Did you ever see anything so vulgar,” he said, “as that veritable river