Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

He loved the way the lamps gilded her hair like strands of spun gold. “More than adequate.”

She seemed to cast about for something else to say.

“Since we’ll spend so much time together, you might call me Gareth in private,” he suggested. “If you like.”

“I do like,” she said brightly, then winced. “I mean, I’d be delighted. Might you call me Felicity? Or Miss Felicity, if you prefer.”

“I might.”

“Well…” She shifted, and he wondered if she was as reluctant to go as he was to let her. “I’m told I snore loud enough to be heard through the walls…” She trailed one fingertip across the blue arabesque paper. “So, I apologize if that disturbs you.”

“It won’t.”

“Yes. That’s good… I’ll bid you goodnight then.” She made no move to leave, merely traced the outline of the repeating pattern on the wall. He could watch her mind working, see the cogs and wheels turning while she searched for something to say.

“Is something troubling you?” he finally asked.

She looked up at him, suddenly appearing extraordinarily young. His fingers itched to smooth away the pinched lines of worry from her brow. “Nighttime is never extremely comfortable, is it? The dark is so full of silence and my thoughts are so terribly loud.”

“I often find sleep infuriatingly elusive.” He surprised himself by revealing something honest.

She bit her lip, then released it, transfixing him. “You know, I woke up dreading the day, but it turned out not to be so terrible after all.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“So… thank you, Mr.— erm— Gareth.”

“Goodnight, Miss Felicity.”

“Sweet dreams.”

He watched her until she closed her door, knowing that if her voice followed him into his dreams, they’d be very sweet, indeed.

Chapter 5

Felicity thought Lord Duncan Murphy, the Earl of Bainbridge, was uncommonly handsome for a man just over forty. Vital and graceful and ceaselessly dashing, he did nothing without an effervescent flair, and could flay one alive with such cunning wit, most people forgave him instantly for making them laugh.

Ages ago, perhaps in a Tudor court, he’d have been a jester. Whispering satires into the King’s ear and seductions beneath the queen’s skirt.

Felicity did her utmost to pay attention to him as they strolled through Hyde Park.

The late morning held on to a pall of mist she and the tall, elegant rake on her arm displaced with their legs. The sun tried, and failed, to permeate the high clouds, but somehow the dew on the leaves still managed to linger and sparkle despite all that.

She did appreciate the tinge of silver threads teasing the auburn hair at his temples. And his whisky eyes glinted and snapped with his inescapable cleverness. He was uncommonly fit, and moved with an unaffected amble most would consider confident, but she thought bordered on the edge of arrogant.

Felicity catalogued these things as he spoke, having lost the conversation some minutes prior. Following Mrs. Winterton’s sage advice, she simply nodded and made encouraging noises when the tone or pitch of his voice seemed to warrant it.

So far, it’d worked like a charm.

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy Bainbridge’s company, she did. Yet, her entire body— all her focus and awareness— was concentrated on the man following behind them at a circumspect distance.

Watching. Always watching.

Gareth Severand’s gaze was a tangible thing, and she didn’t find it at all unpleasant, merely distracting.

Upon awaking that morning, she’d rushed through her ablutions and toilette, more eager than usual to come down to breakfast.

Wrenching the door open, she’d frozen on the spot.

There, on a decorative table next to her door, sat a gleaming pair of spectacles and a watch hanging from a sapphire hummingbird brooch.

Someone had gone to the glasshouse in the night and found her missing treasures there. They’d cleaned them to a sparkling shine and returned them without disturbing her.

Without leaving a note or waiting until she was awake to deliver them into her hands and receive the deserved accolades.

She knew, without a doubt, that he’d done it.

Her servants were lovely, but they knew she preferred them to avoid the glasshouse. That was her domain. Her sanctuary. The one place she could go to truly be alone.

The thought of him lingering within the enclosure didn’t at all bother her.

In fact, it—

“It is a happy thing to see you out of your dreadful mourning frocks, Felicity.” Bainbridge sniffed his distaste. “You quite look like a sunbeam in that gown.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, smoothing her free hand over her velvet bodice. Everyone from Lucy, her lady’s maid, to Mr. Bartholomew, to the driver of her carriage, commented on the loveliness of her new gown.

Everyone, that was, except Gareth Severand.

He’d merely scanned her once over from her hem to the feather in her cap. Mutely offered his hand to help her into the coach.

And then sat up with the driver.

Probably to keep a lookout for danger and all that…

His lack of notice didn’t bother her. That would be silly. And it wasn’t that she’d donned the frock with him in mind, per se.

But she had caught him admiring an amber-gold glass figurine the day before, and thought he might be partial to the color.

Now that she thought about it… perhaps he’d been admiring the shape of the nude woman the statue depicted, and not its shade at all.

“What color shall you wear to the ball tonight?” Bainbridge asked down at her. “I own every shade of buttonhole and tiepin, and should like to complement your gown.”

“Oh, um… It’s a gentle sort of color… not gold, not silver, not ivory… nor is it pink.”

He let out a silken laugh that bared his even, white teeth. “Well, now that I know what it’s not, I’m more intrigued than ever.”

“It’s a sort of diaphanous color, like champagne.”

“And here you make a liar of me,” he winked. “When I said I had every color, I forgot about champagne. I’ll have to see what I can do on such short notice.”

She cast him a conciliatory glance from beneath her lashes. “I’m