The Rebel Bride by Catherine Coulter

He cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps your lordship would like to see the Brandon gardens. They are not, of course, at their full beauty, but still they are not to be despised.” He turned and trained his gaze full upon his daughter. “Kate, conduct his lordship to the gardens. Show him the roses, which will improve their appearance in but a few months.”

Kate looked at her father with blank surprise. Whatever could he be thinking of? The gardens? The mangy roses? They were a mess, beautiful to her but overgrown and wild. Surely the earl would feel abused were he forced to walk amid the tangled vines and rosebushes.

Julien rose, placed his glass on a table, and said with no humor whatsoever in his voice, “I would enjoy seeing the gardens, Miss Brandon, if you would not mind.”

Kate rose somewhat unsteadily, nearly knocking over the small table beside her. She could almost hear her father cursing her for her clumsiness. She raised a pale face to the earl and replied in a small voice, “I would be delighted, my lord. Please come with me.”

Sir Oliver also rose and extended his hand to the earl. “If your lordship would deign to take dinner with us, say tomorrow evening, I would count it a great honor. We can seal our new coming together, if you like.”

A slight smile hovered on Julien’s lips as he shook Sir Oliver’s hand. “The honor is mine, sir. A new beginning it is, sir.”

“Then I bid you good afternoon, my lord.” With those words Sir Oliver darted a sideways glance at his daughter, then removed himself from the drawing room, nearly lightheaded, he was so pleased with himself. It was all he could do not to rub his hands together.

Kate frowned after her father, gave her head a tiny, perplexed shake, and walked to the side door beside the windows. As she opened the door, she said over her shoulder, “The gardens are wretched. I cannot imagine why my father would wish you to see them. Truly, you don’t have to risk your beautiful Hessians if you don’t wish to.”

Julien smiled at her naïveté and declined to comment. It had been quite some time since he had been treated to such blatant tactics as Sir Oliver’s.

8

“Lead the way, ma’am,” he said.

Kate said nothing more as they walked through the overgrown, ill-kept bushes and brambles. She finally drew to a halt and seated herself on a stone bench that stood in the middle of what must have been at one time a lovely rose bower. Her mother had loved the roses and had taught her daughter to tend them along with her. But when she died, something had died in Kate too, and she’d grown to hate touching the now-straggling wild roses.

She was certainly no gardener, Julien thought. He sat down beside her and gazed at her lovely profile. He very much liked the straight, proud nose and her firm chin. Tendrils of soft hair blew gently against her cheek, and he felt a fleeting urge to smooth them away, to touch her cheek, to feel her soft, warm skin under his fingertips. He felt other urges as well, but held himself well in control.

She turned to him suddenly, and he saw the dimples deepening and readied himself to be charmed, which he was indeed when she said in a wondering voice, “However did you manage to turn him so sweet? I have never seen anything like it in all my life. He unbent so far, I feared he would fall at your feet.”

Julien arched an elegant brow and said in his father’s haughtiest voice, “My dear Miss Brandon, would you accord any less treatment to the great earl of March?”

She gave a crow of laughter, the dimples he found so endearing making her whole face alight with amusement.

“Great? Surely it is more infamous than great. But you know, truly, my lord, he was positively toad-eating you. I found it intimidating. Actually, I didn’t like it at all. I also thought for a moment that you were perhaps mocking us, but then I realized that couldn’t be so.”