Indiscreet by Mary Balogh Page B

seems wonderful enough to me for the three of us to be together for a few weeks.”
    â€œI will behave myself,” Lord Rawleigh promised, chuckling despite himself. “But you must admit she is deuced pretty, Claude. Not my type, of course, apart from the physical allure. She is a virtuous woman. I gather she spends her time doing good works—visiting the sick and elderly, teaching the children, and a thousand and one other things, all without asking for any reward. A bloody saint, in other words. Not my type at all.”
    â€œGood,” his brother said decisively, though he was unable to suppress an answering chuckle. “Now perhaps we should change the subject?”
    â€œShe is good with children,” the viscount said. “Why the devil did Winters not give her some of her own, do you suppose? Do you think he might have been a doddering old fool? Or an impotent rake? The least a man can do when he takes a woman to wife is give her a child of her own if she dotes on them. If he were alive and in front of me right now, I would be sore put to it not to plant him a facer.”
    Mr. Adams looked at his twin in some amazement and some alarm. Perhaps he was wise to hold his peace and to change the subject as he had suggested a few moments before. But his brother showed no particular interest in any of the topics that were introduced and soon they lapsed into silence.
    She had taken him for Claude, the viscount was thinking. The smiles had been intended for Claude. Knowing that now, he could see that there had been nothing particularly flirtatious about the smiles. He felt a fool. An utter fool.
    And quite out of charity with Catherine Winters.
    Good Lord, he must be losing his touch. He had suffered nothing but frustration and humiliation at her hands. He had maneuvered a private visit with her last evening, believing that he did so in great secrecy and with admirable discretion. And yet Nat and Eden had been meeting him on his return with ribald comments on the speed with which he had concluded his business. And Claude had known where he went. And this morningClarissa had drawn her own conclusions from the fact that he had lingered in the music room after Daphne and the children had left it.
    And yet he did not even have the satisfaction of having enjoyed some success.
    The damned country. One’s life was no longer one’s own once one ventured beyond the confines of town.
    One thing was certain. Mrs. Catherine Winters might rest assured that her virtue was safe from him forever after. He was going to stay as far away from her as possible for the remainder of his stay at Bodley.

6

    T HE sun was shining persistently through the curtains onto her bed. It was early, she knew, and chilly beyond the bedcovers. But it was going to be as lovely a day as yesterday had been. And she was clearly going to have no more sleep. She stretched and then dived her arms back beneath the covers. Not that she had slept particularly well at all during the last few nights. She decided to get up and take an early walk with Toby. Some children were coming later in the morning for a reading lesson.
    Toby appeared in her bedchamber as she was washing and dressing. He was wagging his tail slowly.
    â€œYou may stand there looking eager,” she told him. “I am not even going to whisper the W-word until I am opening the door to leave or I will have you prancing all about me so that I cannot move without tripping over you. Give me a moment.”
    But Toby, it seemed, knew the W-letter quite as well as he knew the
walk
word. His tail became a madly waving pendulum, he whined with excitement, and then he began the anticipated prancing, dancing in circles all about Catherine and taking little rushing steps in the direction of the stairs as if to hurry her along.
    She laughed.
    A few weeks, she thought as she strode along the village street a short while later and smiled and waved to Mr. Hardwick, the innkeeper,