Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [6]
His casual path brought him to where he faced her again. “I am Castleford.”
Castleford? Dear heavens—the Duke of Castleford?
“Are you unwell, Mrs. Joyes? You have been extraordinarily composed thus far, but now you appear close to fainting. If my failure to identify myself earlier has distressed you, I will be undone.”
His devilish eyes belied his smooth tongue. He was delighted to have flustered her. She prided herself on the composure he mentioned and on an even temper that permitted her to always maintain her poise. All three, she had learned, kept one from being at a disadvantage with others in the world.
She swallowed her surprise. “I am not distressed or even discomposed, so do not concern yourself. I am merely confused as to what connection you could have with the settlement of the estate, Your Grace.”
“Ah.” He scratched his head and tried to appear confused too. “Well, it appears I am the new owner of this property. For reasons unknown, Becksbridge left it to me.”
For a moment her mind refused to comprehend what he said. Then his words settled in, and composure, poise, and good temperament truly deserted her. For the first time in years, in memory, an unholy wrath broke like a storm in her head.
Becksbridge had left this property to him? To Castleford ? To a man so rich he had no use for anything more? To a besotted, notorious libertine who did not give a damn about anyone or anything?
Becksbridge, you insufferable, lying scoundrel.
Chapter Two
Mrs. Joyes was in high color now. Her gray eyes, as cool as an overcast winter sky mere minutes ago, fairly blazed. Castleford thought it probably a good thing that the pistol she owned was not nearby.
Not that these fires were directed at him. Pity, that. He wondered if she ever released them in bed, to a different purpose.
She was a stunning woman, so he had begun erotic speculations about her almost immediately. Tall and elegant, with a pale beauty of a sort rarely seen, she appeared a palette of whites tinged slightly with color. A touch of yellow in her very fair hair. A drop of ochre, no more, in her ivory skin. Gray in those intelligent eyes. The pale blue dress she wore completed the composition. He had seen porcelain figurines colored that way.
She was not a woman he would fail to notice or forget seeing or not want. And so, as she had approached on the garden walk, he was sure he had seen her before. He could not place where. Perhaps they had only passed on a London street.
Now, of course, there was a good deal of pink on her cheeks too, and countless dark glints flickered in her eyes. He welcomed the evidence that she was not as cold as the palette and her manner implied. Passion became her. She did not seem to know what to do with the rage flexing through her, however, so he doubted she permitted herself high emotion of any kind very often.
He gestured to the arbor. “Perhaps you should sit, Mrs. Joyes, while you accommodate yourself to this revelation.”
She strode over, sat on the bench like an iron rod held her back, and grasped its edge on either side of her hips with tight, beautifully tapered fingers. She stared at the ground. He could see her trying to force calm on herself. It did not work well. He could almost hear the thunder.
He stayed at the arbor’s edge, where the climbing rose’s leaves fluttered over the last slat of wood. He noticed that the breeze was bringing in storm clouds from the west, just in time to match her mood.
“You expected Becksbridge to give you this property, didn’t you?” he asked when some of the tenseness left her posture.
She looked up with a withering glare.
“Did he promise he would?”
She hesitated, stared back down at the ground, then, almost imperceptibly, shook her head.
Castleford suddenly remembered where he had seen her before. Years ago, at a garden party at Becksbridge’s London house. It was before he had broken with Latham. Late in the party, Becksbridge’s daughters by his second wife had come out on the terrace with their governess.
He looked into the arbor and saw Mrs. Joyes laughing