Strathmere's Bride Read Online Free

your own choices.”
    “Yes,” she said quietly, standing. “You speak of duty as if only a duke could truly know its meaning. I have a duty as well, your grace.”
    With that, she strode to the door, bracing herself for some comment, some parting gibe he would throw out in order to have the last word. When it didn’t come, she placed her hand on the doorknob and glanced back over her shoulder. The duke was watching her, body stiff, face inscrutable.
    It was then it struck her that she had been wrong. He wasn’t interested in “winning,” as she had accused him. She saw the troubled look on his face and it wasn’t anger. He truly cared about his nieces. He wanted what was best for them.
    But he was, of course, wrong.
    She turned back around and left, heading to her room.
    It didn’t matter what his motives were. Chloe loved her cousin’s daughters with a fierce protectiveness, no less than if they had been her own. She would not allow the duke to destroy them, even if he did it with the best of intentions.

Chapter Three
    I n the drawing room, Helena Rathford arranged her skirts with a quick flick of her wrist, then gave a nod to her accompanist seated at the pianoforte. Her mother nodded back and struck the first chord.
    Jareth watched the young woman, impressed with her grace, her self-possession, her lovely face. Hers was a commanding kind of beauty—strong, high cheekbones with slashing hollows underneath, thin lips of bright primrose, a fine nose and chin, all framed with silvery-blond hair. She closed her pale lashes over ice-blue eyes, drew in a breath and began to sing.
    Her voice was magnificent. Jareth stood transfixed for a moment as Helena gave life to the notes. It appeared to be almost painful, as if she dragged the melody up from her soul to set it free into the air.
    Something, the touch of her gaze perhaps, made him glance at his mother. She was looking back at him, a crafty, knowing smile just slightly twisting her lips. Her eyes slid away, but there was satisfaction in them, he saw.
    Jareth was no idiot, which was what he wouldhave to have been to be oblivious to his mother’s intentions with regard to Lady Helena Rathford. He glanced up, examining the woman his mother wanted him to marry. Beauty, breeding, accomplished in the arts, congenial and pleasant. His mother’s discriminating taste had ferreted out a superior specimen of womanly excellence.
    The music washed over him, and he let it take him with it as it built. His gaze drifted to the window. To the night, and to the stars, spilled across the sky like a thousand brilliant diamonds on black velvet. They were his great love, the stars. So beautiful, so mysterious. Complex, yet predictable, stable. Each season bringing its own patterns to study, to wonder about, yet an ever changing panorama.
    Strange, but he felt so emotional just now. Perhaps it was Helena’s impassioned song, perhaps it was being home after so long, perhaps grief. He didn’t know. He only knew a bleak sadness was welling up inside him, hardening his throat and pricking the back of his eyes.
    That was when he saw the movement. Down in the garden, a shadow flitting among the symmetrical boxwoods. Dark gray against the paler color of the night sky, it was the figure of a woman.
    She moved out into the open. She must have heard the music, for she lifted her hands and Jareth knew her identity, for only one person in all his life had he ever witnessed to have such beauty in her movements.
    Miss Pesserat swayed, then folded her arms about herself. The moon was fat and low behind her. She twirled, then pointed a toe. He could almost imagineher laugh when her head fell back and all that loose hair caught in the moonlight.
    The ache within him eased.
    Catching himself, he turned his attention back to Helena. Poised, so very lovely, her face bespoke of the anguish of her song, the gorgeous Italian words sung with fluency and expertly accented. Behind her, Lady Rathford beamed.