An Unexpected Encounter ( Half Moon House, Novella 1) by Deb Marlowe Page A

with the tenants and the rest of the acreage.”
    “That explains much. Except perhaps why you
did not come out last spring?”
    “My father was a gentleman, a landowner, but
my mother is the fourth daughter of Viscount Brandt. Some called it
a misalliance, said she married down. But he was rich and she was
pretty. It was a love match. My mother is silly and vain, but she
loved my father and he her. She adored the way he pampered and
cosseted her.” She swallowed. “When he died, she was just . . .
lost. As if she didn’t know who she was without his arm to
decorate, his parties to plan, his compliments to accept as her
due.”
    Edmund began to understand. “Until someone
else began to compliment her?”
    She threw her head back. It did lovely things
to her profile, etched as it was against the brighter backdrop of
the open park ground. She was all dark, delicious curves against
the light.
    “A local gentleman. Plans for my come-out
were changed to wedding plans. They were married just a few weeks
after her official mourning ended.” She sighed. “The land agent was
let go—and my help was no longer needed.”
    He could imagine that it did not go over
easily. “He didn’t know what he was up against.”
    Her mouth twitched. “We did butt heads a few
times.” She glanced over. “But he was so often wrong!”
    He laughed. “I’m sure he was.” Sobering, he
asked the pertinent question. “And this year? What happened?” It
must have been something momentous for her to have left home
alone.
    “My stepfather decided that there was no
reason to spend money on a Season for me—a girl so unnaturally
tall, with strange looks and an odd kick to her gallop. I’d had
hold of the reins too long, no ton beau was going to want a
headstrong girl like me. He thought it far better to wait and spend
the blunt on my younger sister. Celia, in his opinion, is prettier
and more biddable. A better investment.”
    He’d like to meet the man. Perhaps sometime
when he had a whip to hand. The thought triggered another. “But the
cows? Where do they come in?”
    “He didn’t want to go to the expense of
bringing me out, but neither did he want to keep me around. He’d
turned out the sheep in favor of a fine herd of longhorn cattle—and
he figured he would trade my hand for the local squire’s prized
heifer.”
    A whipping was too good for the man.
    “My mother argued. A little. But she allowed
herself to be convinced.” She sent a pleading look his way. “I had
to go.” Her head ducked away again. “I had a friend, a gentleman in
the ton . He’d been sent down to rusticate at the estate next
door for some months. We grew close.” She hastened to explain. “He
was a friend, not a suitor. Not really.”
    Edmund reached out to touch her hand. “Then
he was a fool.”
    She drew in a quavering breath. “I wrote him
and asked for help.”
    “He was to meet you at the museum.” He said
it flatly, but a riot of emotion whirled in his gut. Anger at her
family, at her faithless friend. Wonder that she’d endured all of
that and still managed to come into his home and give of herself to
Aurelia, and all the rest of them too. And a deep, irresistible
urge to comfort her, to show her all the shining qualities that he
found in her.
    She nodded miserably. “He said he would take
me to his mother’s house. That they would support me in my refusal
to go along with the betrothal. But it would seem that my
stepfather was right all along—no gentleman is interested in a
headstrong, willful girl.”
    They ought to be shot, the pair of them.
Criminal, what two men had so casually done to a sensitive,
determined, giving girl. Useful, not ornamental , she’d said.
She’d given her all and had it devalued. She’d asked for help and
been abandoned. Now she believed herself to be less than the
beautiful, generous, amazing creature she truly was.
    “Your stepfather was not right.” He slid his
touch around to find the delicate skin