Read Online Seduction Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Shirlee Busbee
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tread on your property again. Good day.”
With a regal nod of her head, she spun around and marched toward the rocks that separated the two properties, April scurrying after her. His young face set, Adrian bowed curtly to the two men and strode after his sisters, his long legs making short work of catching up with them.
Charles watched as they reached the rocks and scrambled over them, appreciating the way a sudden gust of wind lifted the spinster’s skirts, giving him a glimpse of a well-shaped length of calf before she grabbed her dress and clamped it down. Pity—it had been a very nice calf, and he wouldn’t have minded seeing more of it…and her. In fact, her arrival on the scene gave him hope that his visit to Trevillyan’s might not be as dull, dead bodies aside, as it appeared it would be. Only when she disappeared over the mound of boulders did he turn his attention to Lord Trevillyan.
“She was right, you know,” Charles said idly. “You were rude and arrogant.”
“Oh, what the devil do I care what some upstart old maid thinks?” Trevillyan muttered, his gaze also on the rapidly disappearing trio. “To think that Huxley’s fortune went to that boy! A nobody. And that sister of his! Bold as brass. How dare she speak to me in that manner!”
“Well, you weren’t very polite to them, were you?”
Trevillyan glared at him. “No, and I don’t have to be to a set of mushrooms like that.”
Charles shrugged, bored with the subject. He had not been able to keep to his original plan for leaving for Cornwall right after receiving Trevillyan’s letter. Julian and Nell had raised a devil of a dust about his sudden plans for departure, and he ended up spending Christmas and Boxing Day with them. He grinned. Quite enjoyably, too, remembering a particularly dashing young widow visiting in the vicinity of Stonegate who had enjoyed his attentions for a few weeks. The holidays behind him, he’d set his sights once more on Cornwall. He’d been Trevillyan’s guest for nearly a week now, and he knew all about the Beaumont fortune being snatched out of Trevillyan’s hands by some distant cousin no one had ever heard of. When in his cups, which seemed to happen frequently, Trevillyan never tired of repeating how cut up his hopes were and how bloody unfair it was that some social climbing nobody, one who hadn’t even known Sir Huxley, had inherited the fortune that should have been his. Since there had been little love lost between Trevillyan and Huxley, Charles rather thought it an amusing little twist of fate that Trevillyan hadn’t inherited after all.
Charles turned his eyes to the cliff face they’d been studying before they had been interrupted.
“The last body was found here?” Charles asked, his gaze dropping to a spot Trevillyan had indicated earlier.
“Yes. One of our local smugglers, a fellow by the name of Furness, found her, or what was left of her, a few days before you arrived.” Trevillyan frowned. “And I’ve paid him a dashed fortune to keep his mouth shut. Of course, Squire Renwick had to be told, and our local magistrate, Mr. Houghton. They agreed with me about keeping the business secret. As I wrote you in November, the entire area was in a furor over the previous body, and we thought it best to keep quiet about this one.” He sighed. “If it’s learned there is another….”
Trevillyan’s earlier glee, Charles observed, at the uproar in the neighborhood seemed to have dissipated once a body was found on his land. Well, he couldn’t blame him for that.
“Hmm. In your letter, you mentioned something about a previous body, an even earlier one, didn’t you?”
Trevillyan nodded. “When I first arrived home, I heard some gossip that another woman had been killed—before Farmer Brierly, one of Sir Adrian’s tenants, by the way, found the one I wrote you about.” He frowned. “I was never able to confirm that one, but if there was another body, then this
With a regal nod of her head, she spun around and marched toward the rocks that separated the two properties, April scurrying after her. His young face set, Adrian bowed curtly to the two men and strode after his sisters, his long legs making short work of catching up with them.
Charles watched as they reached the rocks and scrambled over them, appreciating the way a sudden gust of wind lifted the spinster’s skirts, giving him a glimpse of a well-shaped length of calf before she grabbed her dress and clamped it down. Pity—it had been a very nice calf, and he wouldn’t have minded seeing more of it…and her. In fact, her arrival on the scene gave him hope that his visit to Trevillyan’s might not be as dull, dead bodies aside, as it appeared it would be. Only when she disappeared over the mound of boulders did he turn his attention to Lord Trevillyan.
“She was right, you know,” Charles said idly. “You were rude and arrogant.”
“Oh, what the devil do I care what some upstart old maid thinks?” Trevillyan muttered, his gaze also on the rapidly disappearing trio. “To think that Huxley’s fortune went to that boy! A nobody. And that sister of his! Bold as brass. How dare she speak to me in that manner!”
“Well, you weren’t very polite to them, were you?”
Trevillyan glared at him. “No, and I don’t have to be to a set of mushrooms like that.”
Charles shrugged, bored with the subject. He had not been able to keep to his original plan for leaving for Cornwall right after receiving Trevillyan’s letter. Julian and Nell had raised a devil of a dust about his sudden plans for departure, and he ended up spending Christmas and Boxing Day with them. He grinned. Quite enjoyably, too, remembering a particularly dashing young widow visiting in the vicinity of Stonegate who had enjoyed his attentions for a few weeks. The holidays behind him, he’d set his sights once more on Cornwall. He’d been Trevillyan’s guest for nearly a week now, and he knew all about the Beaumont fortune being snatched out of Trevillyan’s hands by some distant cousin no one had ever heard of. When in his cups, which seemed to happen frequently, Trevillyan never tired of repeating how cut up his hopes were and how bloody unfair it was that some social climbing nobody, one who hadn’t even known Sir Huxley, had inherited the fortune that should have been his. Since there had been little love lost between Trevillyan and Huxley, Charles rather thought it an amusing little twist of fate that Trevillyan hadn’t inherited after all.
Charles turned his eyes to the cliff face they’d been studying before they had been interrupted.
“The last body was found here?” Charles asked, his gaze dropping to a spot Trevillyan had indicated earlier.
“Yes. One of our local smugglers, a fellow by the name of Furness, found her, or what was left of her, a few days before you arrived.” Trevillyan frowned. “And I’ve paid him a dashed fortune to keep his mouth shut. Of course, Squire Renwick had to be told, and our local magistrate, Mr. Houghton. They agreed with me about keeping the business secret. As I wrote you in November, the entire area was in a furor over the previous body, and we thought it best to keep quiet about this one.” He sighed. “If it’s learned there is another….”
Trevillyan’s earlier glee, Charles observed, at the uproar in the neighborhood seemed to have dissipated once a body was found on his land. Well, he couldn’t blame him for that.
“Hmm. In your letter, you mentioned something about a previous body, an even earlier one, didn’t you?”
Trevillyan nodded. “When I first arrived home, I heard some gossip that another woman had been killed—before Farmer Brierly, one of Sir Adrian’s tenants, by the way, found the one I wrote you about.” He frowned. “I was never able to confirm that one, but if there was another body, then this
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