Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(10)

Chapter Two

After a dream-ravaged sleep, Alec woke up with difficulty and found to his surprise that it was still early morning. Dressed in cream-colored pantaloons, a matching shirt, a chocolate-brown coat, and well worn boots, he made his way downstairs and sat down to breakfast. In stark contrast to the scene in th eating room the night before, there were few people at the table. Lord Palmerston, the Earl of Bridgewater Sir John Waide, and Squire Bentinck were all nursing. either a cup of coffee or a stiff drink in their hands, while Sackville munched contentedly on liberally buttered oatcakes. They were all quiet in the face of a communal hangover. A few murmured greeting reached his ear as he joined the subdued group, and.. Alec inquired idly if any of them wished to join him on a ride.

“A ride?” Sackville repeated, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin to erase a smear of berry preserves “When we’re going hunting in a few hours?”

“The morning air might clear up your—” Alec began, and Sackville interrupted hastily.

“Falkner, I have no interest in anything the morning air might do for me. I’ll rest here and send you off with good wishes for an invigorating ride.”

“My thanks,” Alec murmured, grinning briefly ard setting his cup of half-finished coffee on the tabk before leaving.

The morning light was unblurred by any clouds. It

promised to be a warm day; there was an absence of the mist that had collected on the forest floor yesterday morning. Alec rode Sovereign in the same direction that he had taken once before, keeping the horse under stringent control. The aches and tightness of the night’s tossing and turning gradually left his body. Alec enjoyed the morning, the daylight, the quietness and the concentration of solitary exercise, but the peace he had hoped for still eluded him. Finally he admitted unwillingly that he was looking for Mira, hoping that she would be walking outside in the forest again, and though he called himself a fool, he continued searching for her.

It was not long before he saw her; she was sitting in the crook of the trunk of a fallen tree, a muted ray of sun striking off her black-brown hair. Alec sat astride Sovereign and almost caught his breath at the sight of her. She was tousled and disheveled, and so beautiful that she did not seem real. He shook his head slightly, suddenly engaged in a silent battle with himself. The fact was that he could not allow himself to want her for many reasons… including that of his own honor. It was part of the code he lived by; a gentleman did not poach on a friend’s property or take his woman.

Mira looked up from the pages of the book she had been reading, her bare toes curling into the bark of the log she was perched on. As she realized that someone was watching her, she drew her legs underneath her faded, shortened skirt, but not before his gray eyes had swept over the bare curves of her calves. They stared at each other in silence, the rustle of the forest and the nicker of the horse filling the wordless pause.

Her face was strangely arresting. There was a look of good blood and refinement about her—perhaps even a look of aristocracy—but there were also the strong features of a much sturdier stock. She did not possess the wan delicacy of a pure blueblood but rather a

blooming hardiness that betrayed a mixed parentage. Dressed as she was, she might have easily been mistaken for a lovely peasant girl. But her eyes… the dark autumn depths of them contained a wealth of knowledge that no one as young as she should have possessed. Her heavily lashed eyes were mysterious and unfathomable, and Alec could only guess at all that she might have seen with that bittersweet gaze.

“Do you intend to ride by here every morning?” she asked, her voice low and terse, tinged with the unexpected precisions and rhythms of a foreign accent. He liked the way she spoke; although she pronounced the words almost perfectly, she tended to stress the wrong syllables, giving the language a more flowing sound than usual. In response to her question, Alec, glanced around the charming little clearing in the forest.

“It’s an attractive path. Yes, I believe I will.”

“Then I will find some other part of the forest to occupy until you’re gone.”

Alec laughed, his smile an attractive white slash in his dark face. “Do you sit out here every day?”

“I enjoy the privacy,” Mira said pointedly, closing her book with a firm snap.

His eyes traveled over the book cover assessingly, then returned to her face.

“Jane Austen… Northanger Abbey... surprising.”

“Why is it surprising?”

“I would have expected,” Alec said softly, “something more along the lines of Bewildered Affections or The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactors.”

It was a remark calculated to annoy Mira, since those were absurd and sensational romantic.novels. currently popular among many of the foolish, women-who were attending the hunt. She smiled reluctantly. saw the teasing glint in his eyes, and then laughed.

“No,” she said, “but I will confess that a copy of Manners of the Day was recently pressed on nie with firm admonitions to read it carefully.”

Alec grinned. “Really? I can’t imagine why.”

“Perhaps you would like to borrow it after I’m finished?” Mira suggested.

“Ah… what a kind offer,” he responded with exquisite politeness. “But I’m afraid that I’m far too set in my ways to change—”

“What a pity.”