Free Edith Layton by The Return of the Earl Page B

couldn’t breathe. Her hand flew to her breast as her eyes searched his.
    “Where is the dratted fellow, anyway?” he asked, half-rising from his seat. He looked around with a dawning smile, as though he expected Jonathan to come laughing from out of the shadows of the now deathly silent room, as he’d have done so long ago if he’d been discovered at one of his pranks.
    “Jonathan…died,” she managed to say. “At Salamanca, in battle, five years past.”
    “Ah!” he said, sinking to his chair as though she’d dealt him a blow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
    But for the first time since her brother had died, Julianne didn’t feel like weeping when she talked about it. Instead, her heart leapt, and she found tears of joy blurring her vision.
    “Christian?” she asked, putting out a hand to him. “Christian? Is it really you?”
     
    So they’d gotten Julianne Lowell to come and inspect him, Christian thought as he rode back to the inn where he was staying. He was glad he’d ridden horseback rather than taking a carriage, he wasn’t used to this soft and misty weather, and he liked it. He also felt more able to defend himself this way. Still, he doubted he’d come to harm here. After all, if he wanted to dispose of an inconvenient relative he wouldn’t do it in his own backyard either. Too incriminating. There were better ways.
    Julianne Lowell, he mused. Now, that was interesting. He’d wondered who she was, and hadn’t doubted she was there for a reason. It was obvious from the first, from exchanged looks and sudden silences, that the woman was part of some plan. But Julianne Lowell? He hadn’t expected that. How should he have? There was a long list of people to remember, and though the name Jonathan Lowell would certainly have gotten his attention, he’d forgotten about her.
    Now he was glad they’d remembered. This was very good. She was exactly the sort of woman he appreciated. He smiled. That admittedly, wasn’t a hardstandard for a woman to measure up to. But though he liked most women, he wouldn’t have wanted to pass any time with her if she’d been prissy or toplofty or put on airs—like her cousin. Sophie was a dashing little baggage, but not his sort at all. This Julianne was not only appealing, with her charming face and buxom figure, but seemed as candid and honest as the women he was used to, even though she had manners and morals and breeding. No. The morals, he thought, was a thing he’d yet to find out about. He looked forward to it.
    Best of all, she laughed when something struck her as funny and not just because she was expected to, the way her cousin and the ladies he’d met since he got here did. And she was definitely interested in him, and for more than finding out who he was. He was never wrong about that.
    He frowned. Her brother was gone, which was a tragedy. He wouldn’t think about tragedies now, he couldn’t. But he could consider how to find out if she really was who she claimed to be. That was doubly difficult if a man’s senses were involved, and his definitely were. His opponents weren’t stupid. He could never forget that. Interesting though, he thought, as he rode into the courtyard of the White Hart. This adventure was getting more interesting every hour.
    He swung down from the saddle, handed the reins to a stableboy, and strode into the inn, headed for the taproom. The architect, Battle, had left, but he wasn’t ready for the solitude of his room just yet. He didn’t like being alone, wasn’t used to it, and only went to his bed when he knew he would sleep.
    He paused at the door to the common room and looked in. He never entered a room he didn’t survey first. The taproom was like dozens of others he’d seen in the countryside here, with a low-timbered ceiling, dark wood floors, a long wooden plank of a bar with chairs drawn up to it, and a few tables at the sides of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light he saw three locals at the