She frowned, puzzled, intrigued, and aware of an unmistakable sense of foreboding. Then with a tiny shrug she snapped her fingers at the dogs, turned, and took the back stairs to her bedchamber, Boris and Oscar on her heels. “Bring me hot water, Lucy,” she said as she walked in, pulling at the limp ribbon in her hair. “My hands are filthy and I have a visitor.”
When she went back downstairs, she was aware that she’d left her visitor to his own devices for more than half an hour. The red setters’ toenails clicked on the waxed floorboards as they followed her. Franklin was hovering in the front hall as she descended the Elizabethan staircase.
“His Grace is in the library, my lady. He preferred it to the drawing room.”
Arabella raised her eyebrows. “Has he examined all the rooms down here, Franklin?”
“He did look in one or two of the receiving rooms, my lady.” The steward sounded both helpless and apologetic.
Arabella frowned. Visitors didn’t in general reject a host’s directions and roam the house in search of a venue they preferred. In fact, it was both rude and impertinent and she began to wonder just what kind of a man she was harboring under her roof. It deepened her sense of foreboding. “Did you bring him ale?”
“He asked for burgundy, madam. I took the decanter in a while ago. And a jug of lemonade for you.”
Arabella nodded and crossed the hall to the library. It was a much smaller room than the grand drawing room, darker and more intimate, smelling of books and old leather and beeswax.
His Grace of St. Jules was standing at the window overlooking the side garden, a glass of wine in his hand. He turned as she came in, the dogs bounding ahead of her. She closed the door quietly behind her. “Does your orchid hobby extend to gardening in general?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s clear that someone has an eye for landscaping,” he offered with a smile, leaving the window to take an armless chair beside the empty grate. “The rock garden is magnificent.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, pouring herself a glass of lemonade from the jug on a little gilt table. “How do you find the wine?”
“A fine vintage,” he said. “Your brother kept a good cellar.”
Her hand paused in the act of lifting the glass to her lips. “Kept?”
He regarded her for a moment before saying quietly, “I’m afraid I am the bearer of bad news, Lady Arabella.”
She didn’t say anything immediately. She set her lemonade untasted on the table and unconsciously crossed her arms, clasping her elbows, her eyes gazing into the middle distance.
Jack waited, watching her as she absorbed the implications. He caught himself observing that the ringlets that framed her face were the rich, sumptuous color of chocolate, and her eyes were a rather fascinating tawny color. He couldn’t decide whether they were more gold or brown. Her complexion was the color of thick cream. But despite the appealing color scheme, she was not in any conventional sense either beautiful or pretty, or even handsome. Her face was too strong, too uncompromising, dominated by high cheekbones, a firm square jaw, and a straight aquiline nose. Her dark eyebrows were thicker than prevailing fashion demanded, but her mouth was full, with a long upper lip tip-tilted at the corners.
Finally she let her hands drop from her elbows and her arms fell to her sides. “How did he die?”
The directness of the question surprised him at first, and then he realized it shouldn’t have. She didn’t strike him as a woman who would avoid unpleasantness or beat about the bush. “By his own hand,” he replied, keeping his tone even.
She frowned at that. “Why?”
“He lost everything at the tables.”
“Everything?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Her nostrils flared slightly and she touched her mouth with her fingertips. It was clear to Jack that she understood all the implications. Then she said, “I’ll make a wild guess here. Frederick was the loser, and you, Your Grace, were the winner.”
“An accurate guess.” He reached into his coat and drew out the document that her brother had drawn up at the faro table. He rose from the chair and handed it to her.
Arabella took it and turned away from him as she unfolded it. She read it in silence, then refolded it, turned again, and handed it back. “My congratulations, Your Grace,” she said without expression. “When would you like me to leave my home?”
He slipped the document back inside his coat and said calmly, “Curiously enough, my dear, I didn’t come here to dispossess you. I came to offer you my protection.”
A faintly incredulous smile curled her lips and her voice dripped contempt. “A carte blanche, Your Grace … how very kind of you. But I’m afraid I must decline your so generous offer.”
He held up an arresting hand and shook his head. “Don’t jump to conclusions, Lady Arabella. I already have a mistress, a most satisfactory one, and I neither want nor need another. I am, however, in need of a wife.”
CHASE THE DAWN
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Avon mass market edition published February 1988
Bantam mass market edition/October 2004
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1988 by Jane Feather
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-91630
For information address: Bantam Books, New York, New York.
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon
are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90099-6
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright