page20 (1/2)
“Because I’m so dull and conventional, you mean?” he asked “Because I always have my nose in a book?”
“You ine insults where none are intended Besides, you know perfectly well that if I meant to insult you I’d do so without roundaboutation,” she rebuked
“Then what is so puzzling about my choice of friends?”
“I only meant that you’re conte down at her hands “Lord Berne has probably never had a serious thought in his entire life I cannot understand ouldfor you”
Jack smiled ruefully “I can’t expect all my friends to be Aristotles I’d probably be bored to death if they were Maybe I cling to these fellows because they e from the monotony of my own company Is that so odd? Would you wish all your bosom bows to be exactly like yourself?”
“Egad, no,” she answered with a show of horrour “I should throttle them all in five et any,” she added, glancing towards the house, “if anyone learns I’ve been entertaining you all this time unchaperoned”
She rose and Jack was obliged to follow, though it was not at all what he would have preferred For nearly an hour they’d talked and she hadn’t berated him or hit him once He hadn’t felt so serene in weeks
Perhaps it was simply the veheh eered so much emotion in himself Maybe now that she had settled soitate him quite so much
The end of this tranquil interlude, could Jack but have known it, appeared early Wednesday afternoon in the forradually resolved itself into a pair of sweating horses pulling a dashing black curricle upon whose seat Lord Berne was perched He’d decided that while rivals were all very well in the case of puerile infatuations, they would not do at all when it came to a Grand Passion The enemy must be routed There would be no ardens or anywhere else, save where Lord Berne played the male lead
The viscount did not customarily abuse his cattle, and would have arrived with a deal less lather if he hadn’t needed a potent excuse for stopping at Rossing Hall Jack’s uncle h walked over or around Lord Berne had that youngmortally wounded in his path, but for du had compassion
For the weary horses’ sake, then, he gruly allowed Lord Berne entrance This did not uest, however He promptly abandoned Lord Berne at the library door and headed in the opposite direction
Wasting no time, Tony launched his offensive as soon as he entered the library Citing Atkins’s report of what had transpired in the garden, the viscount demanded to know Jack’s intentions toward Miss Desmond
Being not only greatly taken aback by this unlooked-for assault but altogether unable to satisfy hidon was utterly incapable of responding
Since Lord Berne had no intention of heeding any reply in the first place, Jack’s stan attention The viscount mounted his attack
“You cannot toy with her affections, Jack I knohat her father is and what he’s done, and I knohat people say of her e of an innocent girl”
“Take advantage?” Jack repeated, dazed “What are you saying?”
“You know very hat I mean You think—” Lord Berne stopped short to stare at his friend in consternation “Oh, Lord, what a, speaking rapidly as he did so “I don’t knohat’s happened to me I tried to stay away, truly I did But she draws h—no, your heart is too generous for that Oh, Jack, your friend is brought low, indeed” Lord Berne threw himself into a chair
“Good God, Tony, what on earth is the matter?”
“Theis the matter I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think Oh, Jack, I love her Can you believe it?”
“Well, yes, actually, I can You’re always in love with somebody,” said Jack rather unsympathetically
“Never like this When before could I find no co the undeserved burdens that innocent angel hts her youth even before it blosso the world is determined to destroy any chance of hers?”