Read Online The Husband Hunt by Jillian Hunter - Free Book Online Page A

the water now," he said. "Those weird stones of hers."
    Lady Ellis looked up at him in alarm. "I think you ought to go back to London, Knight. The country doesn't seem to agree with you at all."
    "Do you know what she's doing?" He gave an incredulous laugh. "She's casting a spell in my very own garden. The little pagan you two silly things plan to launch into society is brewing magic in a bucket."
* * *
    The two women never even noticed him leave the room. They were too busy discussing the whos and hows of hiring dancing masters and dressmakers to make their Celtic Hecate presentable to the
ton,
lamenting that they could not aspire as far as getting her vouchers for Almack's. They had
purpose,
and heaven help anyone who stood in their way. He strode across the lawn, ignoring Wendell's call from the study window to stop. In less than twenty-four hours, Lionel's cousin had turned the house upside-down. Yes, Olivia needed a distraction, but preferably one in a tamer form who wouldn't transform an ordinary garden tool into a cauldron or bring birds of prey flocking to the house. And call him low-minded, but he still maintained there was more to her than met the eye. If she had not lied, she had not been forthcoming about the nature of her life, either.
    Yet was it such a sin, or even her fault, to have been born illegitimate? Even the highest-born families made mistakes, and she was an interesting young lady.
    He stood at the outer perimeters of her magic circle, ignored for the second time that day, when he was used to commanding an audience with his mere appearance alone. But Catriona Grant possessed something that he did not. The common folk did not use the word
charmer
for nothing. And so for a few minutes, he allowed himself to be enchanted by her, to see her not with his usual cynicism but with a simple curiosity he rarely indulged.
* * *
    At first, Catriona feared she was about to have another confrontation, this time with the servants of the house. She had experienced so many throughout her life that she ought to know how to avoid them— whenever one of her mother's love spells failed, and sometimes when they worked all too successfully, or the rare times a patient's condition had worsened after taking one of Mary Grant's herbal potions. She and her mother had fled to the seaside then, though never for more than a few months until the hostility against them died down and Mary could resume her practice in relative safety.
    They had always returned to their small house of unmortared stones on the moor so that the earl would be able to find them, to sweep Mary off her feet and declare his undying love for her. Which he never had because—and it took Catriona years to realize this—he did not want to. All the days of waiting for him to appear, all the nights her mother had watched from the window, for nothing.
    But as it turned out, this was not to be another mortifying experience. Catriona had been admiring the water lilies on the pond when the footman Howard hurried by on an errand. Being a sapskull village lad who did not understand his position on the ladder of life, he had spotted Catriona alone and looking vulnerable and had gallantly offered his assistance, asking if she were lost.
    Mrs. Evans, peering from behind the curtains of her parlor window, had immediately come outside to make sure Howard did not make a nuisance of himself. The kitchen maids, on a pretense of snipping herbs, had followed. Small dramas such as this enlivened their dreary days.
    And so Catriona had been cornered, bravely facing a den of lesser lions, unsure herself what her place was to be in this house.
    Mrs. Evans had practically flown across the lawn to interrupt the improper conversation. "Howard! I thought I sent you to the pantry for tea."
    He jumped, moving away from Catriona. "And I was on my way, Mrs. Evans, when I noticed Lady Deering's cousin here looking lost.”
    "And how can she be lost, Howard, when the house is right before her