Read Online Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) by Lucinda Brant - Free Book Online

hurried out onto the terrace with the frightening image of having to bed a female version of Sir Gerald Cavendish lurking in the back of his mind and found his wife alone on the terrace. She was admiring the gardens and sipping wine from a crystal glass. She had her back to him, and had he stopped to really look at her he would have noticed the deep autumn tones to her upswept hair. But he was not in the habit of summing up females on the straightness of their backs and height alone. He did not mean to startle her but he did, and in the confusion that followed he stared not at her but at the smashed glass and the damage done to the hem of her petticoats. It was her exclamation that instantly brought his green eyed gaze up to her face.
    If Deb was startled into uttering an impudent sentence, Julian was momentarily struck speechless. He could not believe his luck. Standing before him was his beautiful fiddler of the forest. Her majestic figure was perfection itself in a deep green velvet riding habit with wide lapels and square low cut neckline that complemented her cream complexion and deep red hair. Horrid images of a female Sir Gerald burst like a soap bubble as he stepped forward and, without a second thought, firmly took hold of her hands.
    “Forgive me,” she was saying, her brown eyes searching his handsome smiling face. “I did not mean to be so horridly ill-mannered. You gave me quite a shock. Oh, but it is such a relief to see you looking so well. You can’t know.” She gave a nervous laugh at his widening smile. “I had visions—horrible ones—that my clumsy attempt—”
    “Never clumsy.”
    “If not clumsy, then unskilled. Allow me that,” she said, returning the pressure of his hands, oblivious to her surroundings and the fact the butler, agog with curiosity, had twice stepped out onto the terrace. “Oh, but you do look well,” she sighed with satisfaction.
    A lackey came out from behind the butler with pan and brush and quickly set to sweeping up the shards of broken glass from Deb’s smashed wine glass. This broke the spell for Deb and she quickly pulled her hands free and crossed to the table, feeling the heat in her cheeks. The Marquis followed, one sharp soft word directed at the crouching servant. The moment of intimacy between them was over. Julian saw it in the tilt of her chin and the determined set to her full mouth.
    “If you think I’ve given away your forest forays,” he said softly at her ear as he pulled her out a chair, “you are sadly mistaken in my character.”
    “Thank you. I never thought you would.”
    “Miss Cavendish,” he began and smiled crookedly at her quick frowning glance. He took his place at the table directly opposite her. “Now you are being foolish. It is only reasonable I should know your name if you came to visit Martin.”
    Deb looked down at her lap where her hands were pressed firmly together. “Yes, of course. Damn. What a muddle.”
    He smiled and privately wondered if their meeting had not been fated all along. “Does Martin know you play your viola in the wood—?”
    “ No .”
    “No, I don’t suppose he can,” he agreed, thinking that if his godfather had known about his wife’s penchant for playing a fiddle in the forest he would have set it all down in one of his regular missives to the Duke. “Poor Martin. I put him to the unnecessary trouble of trying to find you.”
    This did bring her gaze up to his face. She gasped. “You made inquiries about me?”
    “Discreet inquiries, Miss Cavendish.”
    “Thank you very much! No doubt whomever you asked thought you fit for Bedlam. I just hope it doesn’t reach the ears of—”
    “—tone deaf Gerry perhaps?”
    This made her laugh. “So you remember that, do you?” She put out her dish. “May I please have some coffee?”
    “Certainly. Where are my manners? I don’t know where Martin has disappeared. Problems in the kitchen, I suspect. He has a temperamental French