In Regency England, two brothers vie for Mabel's affections. Their passionate rivalry puts her reputation on the line and tests both her sense and sensibility to the maximum. On the verge of despair, she must cast the die: to decipher the most enigm...
In silent accord, Mabel and Hazel assumed the seats in the living room that permitted them to see out of the window overlooking the courtyard. And not too soon!
In the middle of the courtyard, Mr. Chesterton brought up his horse sharply and vaulted out of the saddle.
The horse's coat glistened with sweat, and its sides rose and fell like a ferryman's bellows.
After such a ride, it wasn't difficult to imagine that Everett's forehead was also dotted with perspiration—the thought Mabel found oddly exciting and vaguely indecent.
Alas, she hadn't the strength to even blush as her eyes devoured the dismounted gentleman. The top buttons on his coat came undone to ease the exertion. White ruffles of his shirt and a collar gaped in this opening, contrasting vividly with his curls and the fabric of the jacket.
He tossed the reins to the stable hand, who came running to his shouts, and rushed past, into the house. It was mean of him not to find out if the poor soul was close enough to catch the reins or if the horse bolted or some other disaster had befallen in his wake, but the exuberance filling each of his long strides almost excused such negligence toward those less fortunate.
Before Mabel could catch her hitching breath, Mr. Everett Chesterton was already on the threshold. The tumultuous knocking on the doors and the maid bringing him to the sitting room hardly slowed the man down either.
Up close, he was strikingly, devastatingly, ravishingly handsome.
A hint of foreign bloods showed in the weave of his hair and commanding nose. The crystal-blue eyes, however, were as British as the navy he had served with. Naturally, they didn't rival any sapphires, as Amelia had implied, but the colour startled nonetheless. Her artist's eye spotted that this was thanks to the contrast afforded by the fringe of very dark eyelashes and the wide brow. It was darker than the hair, seemingly neither natural, nor possible, but here it was.
To add to that, he had a beauty mark on his right cheek in an arrowhead shape, nature's way to predict a particular sensitivity of character, but he didn't seem inclined to melancholy or introspection at this moment.
"My dearest Harriet," Everett bellowed, extracting a slim tome from his coat's chest and waving it in the air. "On my honour as a gentleman, the modern English novel is only good as a substitute to laudanum to dull the already dull nights in this backwater you cherish! Please, please, I beg you, take this back and lend me something French! Italian! Anything but our national hum-drum."
Miss Carter received the rascal standing in the middle of the room, affecting a pretend frown.
"Everett, my dearest Everett! You have abominable taste, yet does this give you the right to barge in uninvited and scare my guests near to death with your yelling?"
The etched lips quirked in a humorous grimace. "Once the ladies understand my pitiful situation, I hope it would soften their hearts to my cause."
If Mabel's heart softened any more, it would have to be eaten with a spoon.
He bowed gracefully. "My ladies, I beg you a thousand pardons."
Mabel was willing to forgive a murder for such a rueful smile alone, before he confided in a dramatic whisper, "You see, I am being turned into a veritable savage by the forced seclusion, and my only companions are novels. It is a dreadful predicament."
Miss Carter liberated the book out of his hands tenderly, like a crying child, allowing Mabel to partially glimpse the title. A novel by one Mrs. Mary Johnston. She had already read it and quite liked it. A flush of embarrassment rose to her cheeks.
Are my tastes so desperately provincial?
"Have you become so savage, dear Everett, that you are no longer lettered?" Miss Carter chided her flamboyant guest. "Is that why you rage against the book, because you did not decipher all the words?"
Mabel's heart lightened for acquiring such a wonderful evidence that she was not the only one to—
"On the opposite, I've read this fustian from cover to cover for want of anything else to do. Upon turning the last page, I rushed immediately to report how miserable an occupation of my time it was," he parried cheerfully, plunging Mabel's heart back into the pit of doubt.
A terrible suspicion that this organ would be continuously in jeopardy while Everett was present, occurred to her. An irrepressible dreamy smile fluttered to her lips imagining this prospect. Ah, she'd much rather endure these palpitations than his absence.
Miss Carter waved a dismissive hand in the air. "Tell me, Everett, had your haste nothing to do with the cook's scones?"
"A miniscule amount, I assure you." Everett ran his hand through his raven hair sheepishly. The gesture made him look far younger than his thirty years. "Mostly it was the yearning for your conversation. It returns me to the bosom of civilized society, if only for a moment."
Their exchange went at the speed of dueling rapiers, perhaps a London custom. Mabel didn't mind being ignored, since she needed time to get used to talking while her heart fluttered. But Hazel's lips puckered into a pretty pout: Omitted from society! Not her!
As if Hazel had cast a magic spell, Everett turned sideways from Miss Carter and bowed to them.
Mabel's mind immediately conjured a delusion that the gentleman was looking mostly at her, not her sister. Which was utter nonsense, because he could not have been aware of Mr. Aldington's almost sure marriage proposal, and Hazel was the prettier one. And her pout was delectable, while Mabel gaped like a fish out of water.
"How fortunate that I wandered in when I can enjoy the company of more of the fairer sex," he said. His brows lifted a tiny bit, questioning.
Miss Carter conducted the proper introductions.
"The Waltons!" he cried out upon hearing their names. His eyes flashed as if no other thing in the world could have delighted him more. "Of course, of course! I had the pleasure of hearing about my neighbours."
The modulations of his voice replaced the noon sun as the biggest enemy of Mabel's complexion. Warm glow filled her, colouring her cheeks thicker with red than an aging coquette laying on blush.
"I even ran into Mr. Walton when I was riding the other day. I believe the gentleman must be your father."
If so, her father neglected to mention this chanced meeting to his family, but Mabel had no reason to dismiss Everett's words as empty courtesy.
Her father was of a phlegmatic temperament in general, rarely going at length about anything aside from his hobbies. On this occasion, Mabel suspected he didn't want to stir the already heightened interest in the subject. She could understand that, for until a few minutes ago she, herself, found Everett's notoriety considerably overblown.
But now!
But now that he stood before her in the flesh, and her opinions had changed. How could it not change? And she was glad of it, glad for exhibiting such flexibility. It was only a decent thing to do, to revise her opinions of a fellow man to more favorable. Yes, yes very decent indeed!
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