VIscount Besieged by Elizabeth Bailey Page B

know your way about at once, for it is your
house. It is not true that you are just a guest, and perhaps if you
take your place straight away we may all of us be more
comfortable.’ Her rounded countenance gazed anxiously up at him.
‘Or don’t you think so?’
    Roborough
smiled. ‘My only wish is to see you comfortable, Mrs
Alvescot.’
    A great sigh
escaped the lady. ‘There now; if I did not say to Dora over and
over again that it must be so.’ Then she lowered her voice a
trifle, glancing over her shoulder as if she feared to be
overheard. ‘I must tell you, Lord Roborough, that, though it may
make me more comfortable, I cannot answer for Dora. I only hope you
will not take it amiss if she—if she…’
    Her voice
petered out, and she could only cast him a look imploring his
understanding. Roborough concealed his amusement. It was easy to
see who had the ordering of things here—not Mrs Alvescot but her
strong-minded daughter. He leaned conspiratorially towards
her.
    ‘ To
tell you the truth, ma’am, I had already surmised that Miss
Alvescot does not view my coming with any very great
enthusiasm.’
    Mrs Alvescot
sighed. ‘Dear me, no. She is used, you see, to do very much as she
chooses and she did not take at all kindly to Matty’s suggestion
that you might take it into your head to—’
    Then she broke
off, evidently recognising that these intimacies were addressed to
one who was little more than a stranger.
    ‘ But
I must not run on so. Let us go at once to the drawing-room and
engage Matty’s good offices. She is a dear creature. Such a comfort
to me.’
    Roborough had
begun to realise that comfort constituted the sum of Mrs
Alvescot’s ambition. He knew the type: so indolent, so easy-going
that any undue exertion or call to tax their very limited
brainpower became a strain upon them, yet so universally pleasant
and easy to please that they were invariably surrounded by loving
families who did everything they could to encourage their laziness.
Isadora, in every way opposite, must, he supposed, have taken after
her father.
    Although there
was a resemblance in feature here. About the eyes, he thought. For
Mrs Alvescot’s brown orbs were set in the same wide hollow that
characterised her daughter’s vividly expressive eyes, topped by the
same arched brow. Her hands, too, were given to gestures that found
an echo in Isadora’s own movements. And, for all her plumpness,
Mrs Alvescot moved with a flow similar to that which added so much
grace to her daughter’s carriage.
    He would not
have noticed so much but for the fact of having watched Isadora
performing her Juliet in the gardens. A rare opportunity. It was
not often that one had the chance to study a female unconscious of
one’s gaze. Although, he recalled with a quickening of interest,
she had not laid on any arts to attract even when she had become
conscious of his presence. A refreshing change.
    And she did not
do so now, he reflected, glancing again at her as she stroked the
muzzle of her mare. Far from it. She was much too involved in
talking of her horse, and, he noted in passing, of her father, for
it seemed that Mr Alvescot had chosen the animal.
    Roborough could
not tell if her joy in the beast or her patent admiration of her
father’s knowledge of horseflesh was uppermost. Mr Alvescot had
evidently been a man beloved in his family circle. How different
from his own case.
    But this was no
moment to be reminding himself of the horrors he had left behind.
He had something of more importance to hand here, for the present.
And an agreeable interlude it was proving to be, before the fell
hand of fate moved inexorably on. Because Isadora Alvescot—a
mercurial creature—had eased into warmth, and he wished, if he
could, to sustain that.
    ‘ What
do you call her?’ he asked her of the horse.
    ‘ Juliet,’ she answered, and instantly laughed. ‘Now you will
say that you should have guessed it.’
    ‘ Had
I thought about it, yes,’ he