Behind the Mask (House of Lords) Read Online Free Page B

her going. “This is a royal summons, and you can hardly refuse such a thing. Everything will be taken care of here, I promise.”
    Eleanor was grateful to them, but she would rather have been in town to help with the process herself. Still, it would be good to get to Sidney Park and have a few days to be idle and calm, despite the fear she felt of what lay ahead. More than ever this Season she had found herself missing the Park, the valley and the groves and the smell of the salt air. With a glance out the window at their companion she wondered what Lord Pierce would think of her ancestral home. Would his father be pleased with his report?
    But that was not the true purpose for his visit, she reminded herself. Indeed, though he had mentioned his father by name he had seemed rather loath to do so. Was he the sort of man, then, who disliked using his rank and privilege to get ahead in the world? The elder sons of Earls did not often go into the Foreign Service, and certainly not to the Continent. If he eschewed the benefits his name could buy him, however, she could understand how Pierce might have been forced to start lower in the ranks. He was a school friend of Leo’s, which meant they were of an age, and Leo was barely thirty. How many years had Lord Pierce had to work to get where he was now, squiring a noble family about the countryside? She wondered idly if this sort of duty was trying for him. Did he have a family or a mistress he had left behind in Brussels to come here and follow them to Norfolk?
    Stop it, Eleanor , she chided herself. These things were none of her concern. In three weeks the man would be out of their lives and they would never see him again.
    That didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate the smart figure he cut in those breeches, or the way the cleft in his chin deepened when he smiled.
    “Eleanor?”
    She started. Across the carriage, Georgina was holding a magazine out to her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was woolgathering.”
    Georgina glanced quickly out the window but said nothing about their traveling companion. “What do you think of this gown?” she asked, pointing to one of the pictures.
    Eleanor took the magazine and launched into a discussion of the fashions that would govern the ballrooms of London next season, trying to forget about Lord Colin Pierce and his muscular thighs.
    At midday they stopped at a coaching inn to stretch their legs and have some tea. “I think I’ll take a turn about the yard,” Eleanor said to her mother as the others went inside. “Some fresh air would be welcome after all those hours inside.” It had been quite warm in the carriage by the end, and it would only get hotter this afternoon. There was no one else in the inn yard, and Eleanor removed the fichu she had been wearing about her shoulders and sighed at the feeling of the slight breeze on her skin.
    “I’ve never liked traveling in August,” Lord Pierce said behind her. Eleanor turned. She had not realized he was still there, or she would never have begun removing articles of clothing before him.
    She tried to maintain her composure. It was only her fichu, after all. “Nor I,” she agreed. “Unless one can ride astride as you do, that is.”
    “Do you ride?” he asked, gesturing for her to continue her ambling. He took up the pace beside her, and they went out into the village commons where there was a tidy lane shaded by chestnut trees.
    “I do, though I find that it is not as enjoyable in town as in the country,” she said amiably. “When I was a girl I would take my horse and gallop as fast as I could to the sea. My mother gave me up for a hoyden, I think.”
    “It must be a comfort to her, then, that you have turned out so well,” he said, and then as if realizing the implications of his words he added, “Forgive me, my manners are more suited to the Continent.”
    “Of course,” she said, but she was looking back at the inn where she was certain her mother was