Read Online Suzanne Robinson by The Treasure - Free Book Online Page A

in such words and images.
    Valin touched her cheek, and Emmie started. Whirling around, crinoline tilting precariously, she rushed into the sunlight. She took refuge behind one of the lion statues. She was a lady. If she didn’t remember that, she’d lose more than her chance to find the Spanish gold.
    Valin had followed her. “Still my lady coward, I see.”
    “I’m more fatigued from my journey than I thought, my lord. Please show me into the house.”
    Grasping the lion’s neck, he swung around the statue and grinned at her. “What makes you so different, Miss de Winter?”
    “I’m sure I don’t understand you.”
    Valin’s smile vanished as he rounded the statue. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at her in a musing manner. “You may fool everyone else, but not me.”
    “I fail to …” Had he discovered something? Emmie went cold.
    “You have mysteries about you, Miss Emily de Winter, and I’m going to solve them.”
    “What fancies, my lord.” Emmie lifted her skirts and walked up the stairs that led to the front door of Agincourt Hall.
    North mounted the stairs two at a time and planted himself in front of her. “You’re unnerved. I can see a tiny vein throbbing at your temple, and you’re breathing as hard as if you’d ridden in the Derby.” He narrowed his eyes as he regarded her. “I’m onto something, by Jove. And it’s important, by the look of you. Who would have thought?” She tried to go around him, but he stepped in her way, bent over her, and smiled lazily. “What are you hiding, Miss Emily de Winter?”
    Emmie gaped at him. To be nearly unmasked in so sudden a manner robbed her of speech.She might have stood there, her mouth hanging open like a dead fish, but the doors burst open behind North and disgorged his aunt.
    “Dear Miss de Winter, how good of you to accept my invitation. Valin! Don’t keep the dear girl standing in the hot sun. Come in, come in.”

6

    Valin was in the Russian room because no one ever came there. He was feeling guilty. Having allowed Aunt Ottoline to arrange this country house party, he had intended to approach it with the proper marriage-market attitude. With all sincerity, he’d expected to spend most of his time with the young ladies she invited. But it quickly became obvious that he would never be as important to Miss Kingsley as she was to herself. Lady Victoria was so in love with her Thoroughbreds he could hardly get her attention, and Lady Drusilla had the intelligence of a whelk. None of them would do; Aunt would be furious.
    Valin settled in an armchair and tried to read
The Times
, but he was still bothered. It was because of Miss de Winter. She’d been at Agincourt Hallfor almost two weeks, and he was spending too much time with her. The other guests were beginning to talk. The young ladies were annoyed and offended, but Valin didn’t care. If any of them had been tolerable, he wouldn’t have found Miss de Winter’s company preferable. It wasn’t his fault.
    On top of this, he still hadn’t returned her fan. He had a curious reluctance to part with it and give up the honeysuckle fragrance it bore. To make matters worse, he was feeling guilty for having done something unforgivable. Before she arrived he was already intrigued by Miss de Winter, and the day she arrived his curiosity had been piqued even more. After a week in her company, however, Emily de Winter had become a genuine mystery. So much of one that he’d hired a private inquiry agent to investigate her.
    He had an evil mind; he’d become suspicious simply because the poor girl had tried to be nice to him by admiring his house and grounds. Oh, and because she didn’t seem to know the relative rank of his various guests. Surely he could attribute such ignorance to her foreign upbringing. He would have if another suspicious question hadn’t returned to annoy him. He still wasn’t satisfied about her lack of even a trace of an accent. After having spent so