Free A Heart in Jeopardy by Holly Newman Page A

for one third of its walls were tumbled ruins. It was, nonetheless, an effective and arresting landmark for the property.
    Leona looked back out her own window to try to see the true Deveraux home. They came upon it suddenly when the curtain wall was turning back upon itself. Leona felt her breath ease in her chest. She smiled. The face Castle Marin showed the world was that of an imposing fortification, but the reality was so different as to be farcical and made the pretensions she previously considered weak by comparison. The house was a large, rectangular, gray stone edifice with circular towers at all corners. The curtain wall was the rear wall of the manor house. The exterior was not ornate. Its restrained appearance, in contrast to one's first impression of a romantic medieval pile, could only have been deliberate. Perhaps the house's simplicity was a way to tell visitors to look at the keep and other more important visual aspects of the estate.
    Nonetheless, it was a welcoming house. Light streamed out of the ground-floor windows promising warmth and shelter from the approaching storm. The carriage drew close to the wide stone steps that led up to the entrance, and one liveried servant hustled to let down the steps and hand his charges out while another ran up the steps to appraise the inhabitants of their arrival.
    The coach creaked and swayed in the heavy wind, the coachman and the groom at the horses' heads nervously holding the restive and pawing animals while on guard against the chance that a stray tumbling branch or scrap of paper might spook the horses. Leona shivered as she stepped down and aside to wait for Maria. Lightning cracked the black sky, and thunder rumbled across the countryside. The wind wrapped her skirts about her ankles, threatening to trip her, and fretfully slapped her bonnet ribbons against her cheeks.
    The large carved oak door to the manor opened, spilling a stream of light down the steps to Leona's feet. In the open door stood a tall black silhouette with legs planted apart and arms akimbo, hands on his lean hips. Leona had no trouble identifying the black form. It was Deveraux. She shivered again, though on this occasion not from the cold. She straightened and took Maria's arm to walk with unhurried dignity up the stone steps just as the first mad rush of rain fell.
    Quickly Leona ducked her head down, abandoning dignity, as she propelled Maria up the stairs before her. The silhouetted figure stepped back before their headlong dash for shelter.
    Leona laughed as she reached the warmth and dryness of the entrance hall. She was soaked in that brief distance from carriage to house, and a glance in an ornately carved pier glass mounted between columns informed her that her often refurbished bonnet would never be refurbished again. She flipped back green and gold feathers hanging limply over the brim and turned with undisguised interest to survey her surroundings.
    Once more she was surprised, for the plain exterior of the house gave no hint of the lavish elegance waiting inside. The entrance hall was done in red-veined Italian marble. Columns set six feet from the wall rose up three stories to a domed roof which on a clear day would flood the entrance hall with light.
    Wide eyed, she turned around again, this time to confront Nigel Deveraux leaning against the closed door, his arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed in a dark mulberry jacket that strangely suited his complexion. Still, Leona was surprised to see him in a colored jacket. After meeting him at Rose Cottage she had formed the impression that he only wore black. Her eyes traveled to his face, and her smile faltered at the sight of his rigidly set jaw and half veiled eyes. Black was the color more suited to his expression, she decided dismally. Nevertheless, no matter his mood, she was not going to allow him to ride roughshod over her! She straightened and tipped her head up, her jaw unconsciously thrusting forward.
    Deveraux