Miss Carlyle's Curricle: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix) by Karen Harbaugh Page B

sound affected and cause acute pain to any Italian within hearing distance.”
    Diana choked, almost touched the wrong key, and hastily corrected herself. Luckily, the music was a
largo
piece, slow enough to cover her hesitation. “If you must know,” she said, managing only barely to hold back a laugh, “I was bored with all of it, except geography, and that subject made me frustrated, for my governess could never tell me what the countries were really like, nor did she think it proper for me to procure books that would.” She sighed. “How I wish I could have had a boy’s education. I could have gone on a Grand Tour, and learned Latin and Greek, and learned enough Italian to”—she gave him a sidelong glance—“to learn fencing.”
    Lord Brisbane nodded. “I understand the best fencers are Italian.”
    “You are an odd man, indeed, my lord.”
    The earl started, and looked behind him. “My lord . . .? Ah, you mean me.”
    Diana laughed. “Very well—Gavin. Yes, very odd.”
    “How so?”
    “I have not been able to shock you—so far—with any of my notions.” The sonata ended, and she rested her hands on her lap.
    “Do you mean there is something shocking about you? I am all ears.” He leaned forward expectantly.
    “I would have thought what I have told you already was shocking enough. Certainly most everyone of my acquaintance has thought so,” Diana said primly, again suppressing a laugh.
    “As did your uncle?”
    She looked down at her hands for a moment, then met his gaze squarely. “I owe my uncle a great deal. If it had not been for him, my mother and I would have starved. I was not his heir—he had no real obligation to care for us, except that we were his younger brother’s family.”
    Lord Brisbane had nodded gravely, and his eyes had been understanding. “That is enough to gain anyone’s loyalty. Was it difficult?”
    “Yes,” she had said, and had told him of the cold and hunger she remembered, and how her mother had grown so thin and pale. She had even told him how the servants had found her father on a cold winter’s morning at the steps of their house, dead from drowning in the gutter because he had been in such a drunken stupor he had not the wit nor the will to rise when he had fallen. She had stopped, suddenly, alarmed at what she had told him, something she had not even discussed with her mother. But Lord Brisbane had only nodded, and had gently directed the conversation elsewhere, much to her relief.
    How had he done it? Diana wondered, plucking another primrose and twirling it between her fingers. A breeze wafting through the woods lifted the hair from her face, and she closed her eyes, feeling the warm sun and cool air alternating across her skin. She sighed. She was not one to give confidences, but she had told Lord Brisbane—Gavin—almost her whole life story. She shook her head, puzzled. He was an odd man, indeed. She had never encountered anyone who . . . who
listened.
    That was it. Whatever his manner or the subject that might arise, he always seemed to listen, carefully, as if noting down every word she said. She drew in her legs and put her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. His attentiveness was pleasant . . . flattering, in fact. It made her feel as if what she said mattered to him.
    Her stomach growled and she sighed again, rising from the tree root on which she had been sitting. She should go home and have some breakfast—she looked at the sky—rather, luncheon, and—She stopped, as she looked for her horse near the pond.
    Her horse. Her horse was gone.
    The image of the bay nibbling the knot she had tied on the reins rose from her memory and she groaned. Yes, Lightning was an exceptionally smart horse—so much so that he had apparently learned how to untie simple knots. She had been so immersed in pondering over the nature of Lord Brisbane that she had not even noticed her horse had loosed himself from the branch and wandered off,