Married: The Virgin Widow Read Online Free

hoarse from disuse. He marvelled at the effortless way Laura’s sisters lightened his mood. While he bantered with them, the past seven years seemed to retreat like a bad dream from which he’d been relieved to waken. “I thought flirts were the ones who got locked away until they learned proper decorum.”
    Belinda shook her head, making her chestnut curls waggle. “I fear you are sadly behind the times, sir.”
    Both girls laughed, wrinkling up their pert little noses as their sister once had. It was a mannerism Ford had found particularly endearing. Now, as she brushed past him to stand behind her sisters, Laura looked as grim as any strait-laced spinster.
    “Mind your manners, you two,” she chided them with only the flimsiest veneer of jest, “or Lord Kingsfold may turn us out of his house. Is that not so, my lord?”
    Behind her pretence of wit, Ford sensed fear and desperation. But the proud tilt of her chin issued a challenge. He was not certain how to respond. Nothing at Hawkesbourne Hall was what he’d expected.
    “I said no such thing,” he replied. “Your sisters are welcome to visit for as long as they wish.”
    “Visit?” cried Susannah as she and Belinda swooped toward Ford, each taking hold of one of his arms. “You’re joking again, aren’t you? We live here, of course, and so does Mama. How pleased she will be to see you again.”
    Belinda let out another infectious giggle. “I hope you won’t turn us out before we’ve had a chance to hear about your adventures in the Indies. Did you ever see an elephant? Or a tiger? Did you eat lots of curry?”
    “Too much.” Ford strove to conceal his surprise at Susannah’s off-hand announcement. How long had the girls and their mother been living at Hawkesbourne and why? “But just now, I could eat a whole tiger or a haunch of roast elephant. Join me for dinner and I promise to fill your ears with tales of the Far East.”
    “Dinner?” Laura looked as if he had demanded herhead on a platter. “Of course, you must be famished after your journey.”
    Casting a glance at her sisters, she nodded toward the drawing-room door. “Susannah go help Mr Pryce fetch in the master’s baggage. Belinda, come with me to help Cook prepare dinner. We have the rest of those trout dear Mr Crawford brought. I hope fish will suit you, Ford, since we are fresh out of elephant?”
    Her question made Ford grin before he could stop himself. It surprised him to discover she still possessed a spark of wit beneath her mask of cool restraint. A great number of things about her surprised or mystified him.
    One minor mystery provoked him to inquire. “Who is this Mr Crawford who furnishes food for my table?”
    “Only a kind neighbour,” Laura replied as her sisters released Ford’s arms and headed away with obvious reluctance. “Without his generosity, we would have had a poor meal to welcome you home.”
    Now that he thought of it, Ford recalled a Crawford family who occupied one of the neighbouring estates. They had made quite a fortune in the brewing business. “I suppose I should be grateful to him, then.”
    He did not feel grateful, no matter if the fellow filled his whole larder. He did not care for the fond way Laura spoke of their kind neighbour . Might his cousin’s fortune-hunting widow have her eye on a fresh matrimonial victim?
    That would never do.
    What a disturbing encounter!
    Laura’s fingers fumbled as she tied on her apron. Prior to Ford’s return, a stubborn corner of her heart hadnursed the foolish hope that she would find him still the same eager, amiable man she’d once known.
    But the cold, severe creature who’d confronted her seemed quite capable of turning his back on anyone who became an encumbrance or an obstacle. At first she’d questioned the flashes of hostility she glimpsed behind his mask of aloof restraint. After all, she’d never done anything but free him from an inconvenient obligation to her. Was he angry with her for