Free Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 03] by Dangerous Illusions Page A

matter.”
    Daintry shrugged. “I suppose it was because you both were older. He expected more from you than from me. And, too, when I was small, I was nearly always with Aunt Ophelia if I was not with my governess. Aunt would not permit Mama to strike me, and even Papa respects her wishes. And as for Charles, I can understand anyone’s wanting to smack him. I do myself, quite frequently, and I utterly feel for Davina, though I do not think she ought to flirt with other men the way she does.”
    “No,” Susan said, “and speaking of other men—”
    “Yes, I know,” Daintry said, picking up her whip from among the clutter on her dressing table. “Not that it wouldn’t do that man a world of good to have to wait a few moments. He has become entirely too accustomed to telling others what to do. If I am going to marry him, that must certainly change.”
    “You do like him then,” Susan said, getting up to follow her when she moved to the door.
    Daintry looked back over her shoulder. “Like him? Pooh, he is just a man like any other, though not so bad as I’d feared he might be,” she added, remembering a singularly attractive smile, warm golden hazel eyes, and the bemused way he had looked up at her that first moment after entering the hall.
    “He is very large,” Susan said as they walked along the corridor together toward the stair hall.
    Daintry remembered his asking if she was disappointed to find him taller than his uncle. She had nearly given her most private thoughts away then. How could one be disappointed when a man’s figure was precisely the same as that possessed by the hero of every romantic novel one had ever read? For regardless of the general disapproval of such reading material at Tuscombe Park, no one had ever forbidden her to read what she liked, and she did enjoy reading a pleasant Gothic romance from time to time.
    Realizing that Susan was waiting for a response, she said, “I suppose he is rather large, and he is much too arrogant and overbearing in his manner to suit me. I can tell you, I did not care for the way he took it upon himself to remove my cloak, or the way he invited himself along on our ride, either.”
    “I should not care to see him angry,” Susan said quietly.
    “Oh, pooh. Much I should care for that.” They had reached the gallery, and peering over the railing, she saw that the two little girls were waiting—one patiently, the other pacing. “Oh, good, the girls are there.” Glancing toward the drawing-room door, she added, “If Penthorpe thinks I shall fetch him, or wait while he procrastinates, he has another think coming.”
    She had started down the stairs before she realized that Susan was no longer with her but had in fact vanished in the disconcerting way she had perfected as a child. Then the sound of the drawing-room door caught her attention, and she turned, sighing at the sight of the large man coming out of the room.
    “I hope you were not trying to sneak away,” he said.
    “At least you did not bring Papa along to insist that I let you accompany us on a nice, sedate ride toward the moor, sir. I promised the children I’d take them to ride on the shingle to see the smugglers’ caves, and I do not break my promises.”
    “None of them?” He was beside her now on the stair, his hand firmly at her elbow. She could feel its warmth through the material of her sleeve, and though she did not require assistance to get down the stairs, she decided it would be unseemly to pull away. Few of her friends in the neighborhood treated her at all protectively, although, in London, gentlemen frequently offered such assistance—generally with a great deal of pomp and flourish that she found most disagreeable. To Penthorpe’s credit, he managed the gesture so neatly and naturally that she found, to her own surprise, that she rather liked it
    “There you are, Aunt Daintry,” Charley exclaimed. “We thought you were never coming. It does not take me nearly so long