waited until Rachel looked at him again before replying, 'You want me to be quick? Are you sure? It's been so long, too...'
The hard smile that followed that soft speech sent Rachel's pulse pounding.
'Very well. What I think you are...is little changed, Miss Meredith. That's my initial opinion.' He gave a small, lopsided smile while watching a few of his fingers smooth a languid path along the landau's glossy coachwork. Deep blue eyes mocked her beneath heavy eyelids. 'And that's fortunate for me.
But pretty disastrous for you...' he added in a voice as sweet as honey. Then he was walking back towards his phaeton. He'd taken up the ribbons and soothed the signora's ruffled feathers by the time Rachel gathered sense enough to choke at Ralph, 'Home, please! Now!'
Chapter Two
He will not ruin what is left of my day, Rachel vowed silently as she banished persistently intrusive thoughts of Major Flinte from her mind and walked arm-in-arm with Sylvie along the carpeted corridor to find their sister June.
Truce! No baskets or garlands, Rachel had told her little sister moments before, with a rueful smile. Earlier in the day they had argued over their bridesmaids' bouquets and, in doing so, upset June, soon to be a bride. Now Rachel felt eager to restore harmony. 'A posy of gardenias dotted with laurel leaves and trailing ivy...that's a fair compromise, don't you think?'
Sylvie gazed up at her eldest sister with large, luminous eyes the colour of violent storm clouds. 'It sounds...tolerable, I suppose,' she sighed. Her cheeky lack of enthusiasm was belied by the wordless hug of thanks she gave her big sister. 'William is arrived to dine. He is terribly good looking, isn't he? I should have liked to marry him if only he would have waited a while and not fallen in love with June. Will you find someone like William for me, Rachel? Perhaps a bit taller, with dark hair instead of fair, and longer sideburns, and no freckles. I'm not sure I like freckles on a man, even just that little bit William has across his nose. I'm not sure I like them on a woman, either. Noreen doesn't like hers; she puts lemon juice on her face to try and whiten them, you know.'
Rachel smiled while her slender fingers combed through Sylvie's platinum curls. Once let loose, they rebounded immediately into supple coils. 'You, my love, will probably have no trouble in finding just the right man, and without any help from me when the time comes. I shall be approaching my dotage, you know, when you hit your prime, and probably be resigned to knitting, not matchmaking. I can see it now,' Rachel sighed. 'Seven years hence, you will be the bane of our poor papa's life and breaking the hearts of gallants with careless abandon.'
'Like you do now, you mean?' Sylvie innocently chirped up. She'd heard that her elder sister was called a nasty flirt. In fact, since she was six years old and the awful thing happened to Isabel, she'd grown used to overhearing whispers about Rachel's heartless treatment of gentlemen.
As no one ever told her much, still stupidly believing her a baby, she'd learned to glean snippets of interesting news by loitering out of sight when Noreen and her sister, Madcap Mary, were in a confab. She'd learned of Rachel's poor reputation that way, and of June's proposal from Mr William Pemberton. She'd looked suitably surprised, though, when her mother told her a few days later she was to have a brother-in- law.
The Shaughnessy sisters would pick things over while polishing silver in the back parlour or making the beds. Noreen did most of the picking and her block-head sister most of the nodding. But every so often Madcap might bark out her own rough idea on what's to do in the Meredith household. And sometimes, Sylvie thought, it wasn't as daft as it ought to be...
'No, please don't follow my example...' A throbbing solemnity to Rachel's words made Sylvie snap out of her reverie and angle a curious look up at her.
'I expect we might find the