Lord Harry's Folly, Catherine Coulter [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

a gentleman riding alongside pulled onto the green. She glanced sideways at the driver and drew abruptly to a halt, handily catching Coquette’s bridle in her fingers. She looked into the smiling face of Kate St. Clair, the countess of March. She felt nothing but pleasure at the encounter until she realized that the gentleman on the black stallion was the earl, and he wasn’t happy.

Well, there was nothing she could do about it. “My lady,” Lord Harry said, bowing in the saddle, “I see that you have taken to more mild forms of exercise. Do you enjoy yourself sufficiently?”

Kate gave a trill of laughter, delighted to see Lord Harry. She looked at her husband, expecting to see his easy smile. She was surprised and confused at the sudden set look on his face, that tightening of his jaw, a very stubborn jaw, that happened only during their more ferocious arguments.

“How delightful to see you again, Lord Harry. Such a pity you couldn’t come with Harry to dine with us the other evening. Harry sang your praises until my lord here was ready to throw turtle soup in his face. Hitting the target from twenty feet at Manton’s is no small feat. Ah, how I should like to go there.”

“I should like to take you there, my lady,” Hetty said. She was well aware that the earl’s eyes were stark and narrowed on her face. He was furious. Excellent, just excellent. Let him gnash his teeth, for he couldn’t call her out, only the marquess could.

Hetty smiled as she looked squarely into the earl’s set face. “My lord,” she said. “It is an exquisite phaeton. I, myself, admired it at Tattersall’s. The countess drives it well. I imagine that she could also shoot well at Manton’s.”

“Indeed.” The earl said nothing more. He was now looking at Melissande, who was growing decidedly restive at not being the center of the conversation.

The countess misunderstood her husband’s behavior. “Oh, do forgive me, Lord Harry, but who is this lovely lady with you?”

“This is Melissande Challier. Melissande, this is the earl and countess of March.”

The countess gave Melissande a friendly smile and nodded. Melissande gave a toss of her plumed hat, never looked at the countess, but stared at the earl, saying, “Surely I’m honored.”

Hetty guided her horse away from the phaeton. “We will leave you now. It’s cold and I’ve no wish to see icicles growing off your nose, my lady. Do enjoy yourself. Perhaps someday, we can arrange for you to come with me to Manton’s.”

The countess stared after Lord Harry as he gently and with great care assisted Melissande’s mare into a slow canter.

She turned to her frowning husband. “Lord Monteith is a charming lad. Now, Julien, don’t be cross with me. I admit to my rudeness, though it was unintentioned. I was just so pleased to see Lord Harry again. Miss Challier is beautiful, but oddly, I wouldn’t have imagined her to be quite in Lord Harry’s style. But it’s amusing how opposites attract.”

The earl tried to smile, he truly did, but he couldn’t quite make it. He said, “Kate, I’m not at all angry at you. And, as usual, you are quite correct, the lady isn’t at all in Lord Monteith’s style.”

“Just whose style is appropriate to the lady?”

She knows something is wrong, the earl thought. He said, “Very well. Melissande Challier isn’t a lady. You’ve just been your most charming to Jason Cavander’s mistress.”

“Goodness. But Julien, if she’s Jason’s mistress, whatever is she doing with Lord Monteith? Surely it isn’t at all the thing to do.”

“No, it isn’t at all the thing to do. It’s insane, actually.” The earl followed the retreating figures of Lord Harry and Jason Cavander’s mistress. He was remembering his conversation with Jason but a few days before. What a fool he’d been to so blithely discount his friend’s story about Lord Monteith’s flagrant provocation. God, when Jason found out, as most certainly he would, about Lord Monteith openly flaunting Melissande with all society to see, the young man might very well find himself thrashed to an inch of his life. Why the devil was the young man doing this? Did he wish to be beaten soundly, or perhaps have a foil run through his gullet? He decided that it would be better that he himself tell Jason Cavander. Jason had the devil’s own temper when aroused.

“Julien, what is it? What are you thinking?”

She knew him far too well for him to lie to her. Thus, he spent the next hour relating to her all that he knew about this strange situation.

When he finished, his countess was silent for a very long time. “Come,” he said, “what are you now thinking?”

“I think,” she said in a very quiet voice, “that Lord Monteith is far too intelligent to embark upon such a course as you describe without an excellent motive. He’s an unusual boy, Julien. There is something very different about him. I would hate to see him cut down so young by Jason Cavander. Yet, you feel that he is purposefully pushing Jason until there is no choice but retaliation. Is there nothing you can do, Julien?”

The earl said frankly, “Probably not much. But I will speak to Jason on the morrow. Perhaps between us we can determine just what is driving the lad to such fatal extremes.”

Chapter Nineteen

Pottson was busily engaged in adding a dash more garlic to a steaming mutton dish upon Hetty’s return from her ride in the park with Melissande. She breathed in deeply, demanded a spoon, and dug in. “Oh goodness, Pottson, it’s wonderful. It’s much too good for Sir Harry and Mr. Scuddimore. We can save it for just the two of us. Haven’t we several apples we can give Harry and Scuddy?”

“Go on with you, Miss Hetty,” Pottson said, waving his own spoon at her.

Hetty was changing into Lord Harry’s clothes, when there came a knock on the bedchamber door. It was Pottson wiping