He let his frown deepen. “One point continues to elude me—why do you think she’s so unquestionably the right lady for me?”
Audrey’s smile took on an edge—one of understanding and determination. “You’ll have your answer when you find her.”
He wasn’t going to get any more from her; with a sigh he let her hear, he bowed over her hand and headed for the house.
In one respect, Audrey was right—tracking down people was one of his fortes. By dint of asking the butler, Stripes, he learned first that Miss Malleson had not called for a carriage or a horse and was consequently somewhere in the house or within walking distance of it but was not in her chamber, and, secondly, where all the places a lady might seek solitude were located.
He ranked those places in order of the most likely—the conservatory, the orangery, the shrubbery, the maze, the chapel, the billiard room, and the library—and set out on his search.
When he opened the paneled door of the library, stepped silently inside, and instantly, instinctively, knew she was there, he realized that when dealing with Phoebe Malleson he was going to have to adjust his thinking.
She wasn’t the average young lady.
He couldn’t see her from where he stood, but instincts honed through years of constant danger informed him he wasn’t the sole human in the room. That, indeed, there was a female in the room.
Closing the door silently, he walked forward, smoothly, barely disturbing the air. And saw her.
He halted.
Head and shoulders comfortably supported by a large fringed cushion, Phoebe Malleson—he had no doubt it was she—lay reclining on a chaise angled away from a long window. The light streamed in, striking garnet glints from her neatly coiled coronet of dark
red hair before falling on the pages of the book she was engrossed in.
So engrossed she hadn’t yet noticed him; he seized the moment to take stock.
She was, he estimated as he eyed the length of leg demurely concealed beneath filmy pale blue skirts, a trifle taller than the average. Her figure was slender, yet, as far as he could judge given her pose, her hips were nicely rounded. Her breasts were too, not large yet promising a firm handful. Her throat was long, her skin pale and fine. Her jaw…
Even in respose, her jaw suggested determination.
Indeed, all her features—broad brow, straight nose, wide eyes—he couldn’t tell their color—set beneath finely arched dark brows and framed by lush lashes, and her fractionally too large mouth with its full, red lips, all neatly set in the pale oval of her face—held a hint of the dramatic. The whole projected a sense of aliveness, of vitality and purpose—attributes he’d failed to discern in other young ladies.
Audrey had been right. Just setting eyes on Phoebe Malleson awoke a compelling curiosity—a wish to know more, to learn what made such an unusual lady tick.
A plate of fruits sat on a low table before the chaise; it had clearly been sampled at length. As he watched, her eyes never leaving the page, Phoebe Malleson extended one slender arm, searched, located a bunch of grapes, deftly plucked one, then carried it to her mouth, hesitated while she finished a section, then slowly eased the plump grape between her luscious lips.
Deverell watched it slide into her mouth.
Inwardly grimacing, he shifted his weight.
She looked up.
Phoebe Mary Malleson glanced across the room and quite unexpectedly found herself gazing at a nattily striped waistcoat. She blinked, then lifted her gaze…slowly.
The man—gentleman—was tall. And large.
How had he got so close?
He had the most gorgeous green eyes she’d ever seen.
Fascinating green eyes…and a direct gaze that was, even more to her surprise, frankly disconcerting. She wanted to look away, to break the contact, yet some part of her didn’t dare….
Who the devil was he?
More to the point, her inner self whispered, what was he?
A peculiar little shiver slithered down her spine. She continued to stare, mesmerized, hypnotized—caught, trapped, within his green gaze. Alarmed, and not a little disgusted at such ridiculous and newfound susceptibility, she forced herself to blink and succeeded in wrenching her eyes from his.
Lying all but supine in the presence of a dangerous man wasn’t wise; clearing her throat, she swung her legs over the side of the chaise and sat up.