The Spare Read Free

gentlemen closed in on Diana. No one followed the redhead even though she was, to his mind, the more appealing of the two.
    Sebastian shifted on the chair, but nothing eased his discomfort. His ribs hurt like the devil. And yet he wanted desperately to be up and about. Inactivity suited him in neither body nor temperament. Outside, the light turned, and he could once again see through the window. The redhead walked toward the hedges, sliding now and then in the snow. Though she was not yet near enough to make out her features, he could see that she was a small woman.
    "Your sister's grown quite tall." He'd met James's sister—half-sister, since they had only their mother in common—five years ago when he'd visited the Fitzalan estate in Middlesex. He'd been a third lieutenant then, newly promoted. Andrew was there, too. It was the last time he'd seen his brother.
    James glanced at the window. "Yes."
    Sebastian remembered fetching her a glass of lemonade. Strange how he remembered that detail but hardly any about her appearance. Youth. Blushes. A plump figure. Blue eyes, he thought, and, even at her age, an air of sophistication. He'd left the following morning for Falmouth and the Indian Ocean. If she was willing, why not? Marrying Diana would be an excellent solution to the problem of ending his single state.
    By now, the redhead had come near enough that he could see she was older than he first thought, into her twenties, but with skin much suited to the winter skies of Cumbria. He'd been so long sailing the ocean—twelve years in all and the last five without port in England—the change in feminine fashions astonished him. Yet even he could see the redhead's clothes were not in style. No embroidered hems. No pelisse with puffy sleeves, no Brussels lace. Just white muslin and an encircling ribbon several inches above her natural waist. And the insistent red of her hair, bright against the snow. She crouched, angling toward the window as she searched for the ball in the dense foliage of a low hedge. Her mouth moved in a triumphant shout. She rose, ball clutched in one hand. A breeze riffled her hair, blowing curls across her cheek.
    To his surprise, his heart did an awkward turn in his chest at about the same time his body registered significant interest to the south. She was pretty. Very pretty. With a smile that made him want another. He watched the sway of her bottom as she dashed uphill to James's sister. Significant interest.
    "Who is the redhead?"
    "One of your guests, of course." James coughed into his hand. "Though," he said carefully, "not quite a country lass."
    "The sixth," Sebastian said. "The one I am not to choose." The hound pushed its head forward beneath his fingers. Its eyes closed when Sebastian rubbed behind one ear.
    "My Lord," said McNaught.
    His valet's glass hovered inches from his face, floating like some ghostly apparition. Sebastian kicked the blanket off his lap in the hope McNaught would be distracted from his deuced potion. Pain licked up his side, a searing reminder that he was far from healed. Oh, he could hobble about well enough, but anything truly energetic—blanket-kicking or pointless games of tennis, or, for that matter, embracing one's wife-to-be—remained out of the question. But he'd begun to think it possible to one day walk in his newly acquired garden instead of admiring the prospect from an invalid's chair.
    James waved one lace-cuffed wrist. "Diana was London's reigning debutante this season past. Absolutely without mercy. Broke at least a dozen hearts. Probably more."
    "Why isn't she married?" He meant the redhead, but the moment the question left his mouth, he knew James would misunderstand, and so he did.
    "Saving herself for you."
    Sebastian glanced at his friend, taking in the golden hair and angelically male features of James, viscount Fitzalan. "Now, why should she do that?"
    "All the young ladies want to be your wife. Including Diana. God's truth, Sebastian, old man.