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

many years in France Miss de Winter should have at least had difficulty with her
Rs
.
    “You bastard,” he muttered. “She probablyspent months trying to Anglicize her speech to fit in.”
    No. He wasn’t being unreasonable. There had been other incidents.
    After dinner one night, he’d shown everyone the conservatory. While the others were admiring the tropical plants, he had found Miss de Winter inspecting the walls of the house that adjoined the glass structure. She’d been startled to see him appear from behind an ancient oak tree.
    “What are you doing, Miss de Winter?” he’d asked.
    Whirling around she sucked in her breath and stared at him for a moment. “Oh, just admiring the way the conservatory is constructed.”
    “You could see it better if you weren’t right next to the wall.”
    “True.” She hurried past him into the garden, and gazed up at the glass panels.
    He joined her. “We had Bertie here last year, and he loved it.”
    “Who?”
    Valin glanced down at Miss de Winter with a frown. “Even a girl from a French boarding school ought to know there’s only one Bertie in England.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s the Prince of Wales.”
    “Oh, that Bertie,” she said. “Shall we go in? The others will wonder where you are.”
    Valin shifted in his armchair and let
The Times
fall to his lap. He could have sworn she hadn’t the least idea that Prince Albert Edward was known as Bertie. And there had been other small instances that made him suspicious of the elegant Miss de Winter.
    She hadn’t understood him when he referred to his cattle. Everyone he knew would have known he was referring to his horses, not real cattle. Miss de Winter had not. Then there was the way she’d complained about the bell that was rung at six o’clock in the morning. The other young ladies had blushed when Miss de Winter talked of it at breakfast. Why hadn’t she known the bell was rung so that those married ladies and gentlemen who’d spent the night with their lovers could return to their proper rooms before the servants were up and about? Every schoolgirl knew that, even if they didn’t understand what went on during those nighttime sojourns.
    A few days ago he’d mentioned in passing that a distant relative “had his strawberry leaves.” Her confusion told him she had no idea that he was referring to part of the design of a ducal coronet as a way of indicating that the man had succeeded to the title. That was when he decided to find out all he could about Miss Emily Charlotte de Winter,but now he was having regrets. Miss de Winter couldn’t help having been raised in France. Her parents had done her a disservice leaving her there for so long. The poor girl was a stranger among her own kind, and he was about to find out how ridiculous were his suspicions.
    He should have realized he was succumbing to his own habit of distrust. He expected people to disappoint, and if they didn’t he found a way to make them. It was something he’d learned after his father had married his stepmother, Lady Carolina.
    Valin closed his eyes and forced himself not to allow ugly memories into his mind. There wasn’t time to think of Carolina, no time to torture himself with more guilt. The inquiry agent had arrived, and Thistlethwayte was showing him upstairs. Valin would listen to his no doubt harmless report, pay the man, and forget his own folly.
    Valin’s shoulders twitched in discomfort. He suspected himself of ignoble motives where Miss de Winter was concerned. He couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. He heard her voice, low and provocative, when he was reading correspondence. He smelled her when he was out riding alone—that captivating scent of honeysuckle and Emily that always seemed to envelop him when he was with her. He saw her in the face of every womanhe met, or, rather, he found himself wanting to see only her. He was a sick man.
    Disgusted with himself, Valin jumped up from the chair in which he’d