Page 24 of A Lady of Means (Roses and Rakes #1)
Chapter Nineteen
Moria, either a beautiful liar or just out-of-touch, had described her family’s country estate as “modest.” He was no stranger to country estates, having grown up the rightful heir to Wintersea Manor, but Brookevale Park’s sixteen bedrooms and the lake behind it made him seem like the “modest” one.
“Your house is…nice.” he’d said, walking three paces behind the rest of her family, arm in arm, on the way from the church when a Jacobean manor came into view.
“I know, right?”
Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to intimidate him.
He was intimidated anyway. How was he to compete with an orangery and a boat house and an armory and a stable with twenty-three of England’s finest horses?
Her younger sister was running a veritable undomesticated animal halfway house.
And he shared a townhouse off Belgravia with Calum.
Moria’s fingers flexed around his arm, pulling him back to the present.
Back to her, and the fresh dotting of freckles on the bridge of her nose from a couple days in the country.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said.
Jasper eyed him over the luncheon table in a breakfast room in which the windows had been opened to let in a breeze and they’d had to pull up extra chairs to accommodate everyone. It was more than nice.
“You look terribly familiar, Captain. Have we met before?”
To Moria’s left, her sister, the bespectacled viscountess from the masquerade, made a soft choking noise, her husband giving her small attentive pats on her back. Devyn found it ironic the inhabitant of a guise like hers found such difficulty with a ruse when someone else was playing it.
“Perhaps you are acquainted with my brother, the Earl of Clairville?” Devyn answered the Earl.
“I believe he was a few years ahead of me at Harrow. Before he inherited from your uncle, and before I inherited, we both attended a house party with some legendary shooting at the late Duke of Andover’s place in Somerset.”
Devyn was born to a title, but he didn’t know how the other man managed such a broad slate of affairs, with two unmarried sisters to boot.
Moria had been distracting Devyn enough from his duties that a couple of his men had commented on it.
He had only a short furlough before he’d be shipping overseas, and he didn’t care what anyone thought of how he spent them.
As usual, his defense was self-deprecating humor when he had to talk, and quiet stoicism when he didn’t.
His seat at the tea table offered him the perfect view of the woman he’d crawl on glass to make his.
She was wearing a dress that was white, set off by a shade of green that deepened the gold rings inside of her blue eyes.
The slope of her shoulders and the curve of her breasts were edged in a lace he wondered matched what she was wearing underneath.
Had the sun kissed the skin beneath those undergarments too?
Mother of god, she had him noticing her clothes and thinking about her undergarments. He was beyond hope.
Belatedly, he registered that he’d been seated between her younger sister Olivia and their chaperone, and no one had spoken in a full four minutes. Five? He should probably stop eye-ravishing Moria and say something.
Her youngest sister Olivia took him in like he was under a microscope. “He is quite the specimen.”
Moria gave her sister an exasperated look from across the table. He loved the way she looked when she was exasperated. “Specimen? Really?” she tipped her teacup to her lips. His whole foolish body felt envy for that teacup.
Olivia nodded and then said to Moria in a stage whisper, “He should be studied for science. I didn’t know they existed in his…variation.”
Their companion groaned, before resuming her occupation of feeding the newly christened baby atop her lap.
How did these people keep up with all the inhabitants at one table?
It had always been him and Perry, Perry had never let him want for joviality when he was around, but how lonely must it have been for Perry before he’d come along?
Perry was the type of aristo that could sit at a bedecked table such as this, brimming with circumstance, yes, but also wit and conviviality.
Devyn winked at Olivia. A chuckle escaped from him when a blush crept up Moria’s neck.
“Nothing I haven’t heard before, my lady, but I’m nothing special, just a warrior.”
Olivia tilted her head to the side. “Tell me, what does your diet consist of? And your exercise regime? I’m assuming…weights, running, maybe drilling, boxing, and some swordplay?”
Moria rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her sister and brother-in-law looked on with appreciative eyes.
“Of course, my lady. A captain must be a master of many…skills.”
“I’ve always thought Moria would have made an excellent soldier.”
“Olivia, that’s—” the Earl of Westmoreland tried to cut the youngest of the Pembrookes off but she was unflappable.
“She is the most accurate shot of my siblings and an excellent horsewoman. She’s always been good at games of strategy as well.”
The open affection with which Lady Olivia beamed at Moria cracked him open a little bit. Moria gave a soft smile and looked away uncomfortably, shaking her head. Why was she uncomfortable with hearing such genuine praise?
Her words from the library came back to him. They wanted a mercenary, someone who could be bought for a price for their own purposes, but no cost they offered was worth the price of my pride, my revenge.
“Not a mere foot soldier, then; more like the goddess of war.”
Olivia gave an appreciative tilt of her head. “Are you sure you’ve only just met her?”
Moria set her fork down on her plate with a loud thwap. She was staring at him, teasing her bottom, perfect lip between her teeth. The other occupants of the table had fallen still, awaiting his answer like they’d sensed the familiarity too.
His eyes were trained on hers; he said the words like a caress between them. “I met her in another life, perhaps.”
“How fortuitous that you found her again, then.” Said Lady Noelle, raising her water goblet to him in a small salute before taking a sip.
He wasn’t expecting it when Moria chimed in with, “You know that I’ve always made my own luck, sister,” and popped a morsel of bread in her mouth.
God help him, he had scant days left until he left for foreign enemies, but his world had narrowed down to claiming one little huntress and her perfect mouth.