The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

said. “When they were discovered in their mischief-making, Bella lied or cried like any normal girl, but Julia stood like a queen and took her punishment. If she felt the accusation was just, she condescended to apologize for her actions. But if she felt the accusation was unfair, the scorn in her eye was withering. If she hadn’t been such a loving child, and so obviously in need of mothering, I believe Mother would have come to fear her.” Clare sighed. “I hate to think of someone of her spirit suffering confinement and perhaps . . . worse.” She turned an anxious face to Nick. “You don’t think there is any truth in the gossip? That she is his . . . ?”

“No.” Nick stood and paced the room. “No. The girl I met today was no one’s mistress, willing or unwilling. But she was anxious about her own safety, and she did agree that she should come to us at Blackdown. Apparently she cannot get away from this cousin of hers. He seems to have some hold over her. It’s enough to drive me mad with worry for her.”

Clare looked at him thoughtfully, her lips pursed. “Hmm,” she said.

“Hmm what?”

“Just hmm.”

Nick twitched his cuffs into place. He had never been able to hide anything from the all-seeing older-sisterly powers of Clare. Of course that went two ways, and therefore he knew exactly what she was thinking when she said hmm. And she was perfectly right. This morning Julia had plucked his heart like it was nothing more than a strawberry hiding under a leaf. He loved her. He, Nick Davenant, né Nicholas Falcott. Or was it Falcott né Davenant? In any case, there it was. He was in love with a woman two hundred years in his past.

Not that he was going to admit his feelings to Clare, or indeed to anyone. So he scowled. “May we please concentrate on how to get Julia from there to here?”

Then, from across the room, Nick and Clare heard a delicate cough, and the Russian rose up from a leather armchair that faced the fire. “If I may offer my services?” The paternal benevolence of his smile encompassed them both.

“For God’s sake, Lebedev. Don’t you know it is rude to eavesdrop?”

“I beg your pardon.” Arkady examined his fingernails. “But I was happily dozing in this chair when you two barged in and began your so interesting conversation.”

“Clare, I apologize for the count. If anyone is a barbarian, it is he.”

Clare turned sparklingly to Arkady. “If you would care to join us, Count Lebedev? I’m sure your suggestions will be most welcome.”

“I thank you.” He bowed, shooting Nick a triumphant glance, then strolled across the room. “The problems of your neighbors are tiresome. I came here to fry, how to say it, bigger fish?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “I am desolate to learn that you find our society tedious and our problems beneath your interest.”

Arkady brushed past Nick. “May I?” He indicated Nick’s old seat beside Clare, and Clare nodded. Arkady disposed himself gracefully and looked from one sibling to the other. “The rank of marquess, it is higher than the rank of earl, am I wrong?”

“So what?” Nick crossed his arms over his chest.

“This phrase, ‘so what,’” Arkady said. “It does not sound quite correct.” He looked darkly at Nick.

“I don’t give a rat’s arse,” Nick said. “You understand me perfectly. I repeat: so what?”

Clare laughed. “Calm yourself, Nick, and do exert yourself to speak like a gentleman. The count is only trying to help, and you are behaving like a bear.”

Arkady spread his hands. “You have been forgetting yourself for three years, Lord Blackdown. Your sister said you have changed. You admire Godwin and his wife Mary . . . Mary . . .”

“Wollstonecraft.” Nick ground the name out.

“Ah, yes. You have been keeping company, perhaps, with revolutionaries? And, shall we say, enlightened women? Such exciting thoughts they think, these men and women who dream about the future. But please recall: What is in the brain of a normal aristocrat? He goes to a dinner party. Is he thinking that the women are the equals of the men? Does he want to end the slavery? No. He worries: Who is sitting below me at the table? To that man, he shows only his nostrils. Who is sitting above me? To that man, he smiles and smiles.”

“Please,” Nick said. “Get to your point.”

Arkady inclined his head. “If your English aristocracy is anything like our Russian aristocracy, your neighbor the earl will welcome you, the marquess, with bows and scrapes. He thought you were dead. That made him the highest aristocrat in miles and miles. Down he looked upon everyone. But now you have returned. He will not like it, but he must look up to you. I predict that he will accept a visit from you and your sister.”

“Of course.” Clare pivoted on the couch. She was practically in Arkady’s lap. “You are right. We shall wear our finest apparel, stink of ambergris and disapproval, and stay only fifteen minutes. We shall suggest to him that if he does not stop trampling on his cousin’s reputation, society will shun him.”

“If I may be permitted to join you?” Arkady smiled at Clare. “I have much interest in this Castle Dar. I have heard, oh, many tales about it. It has a very interesting atmosphere. Almost . . . timeless?” Arkady caught Nick’s eye over Clare’s head and gave him a meaningful look.

Nick had to admit it was a plan. It did not involve riding up to Castle Dar on a fiery white stallion, fighting the earl with a broadsword, and then carrying Julia away into the sunset. But then again, it would probably work. And if Arkady got to hunt Ofan on the side, that was fine, too. “Yes,” he said. “We go tomorrow afternoon.”

“Why not this afternoon?” Clare asked.

Nick thought of Julia, and the possibility of a meeting up by the woods tomorrow morning. Once she was at Blackdown, he would never see her alone; she would always be