The Lady Forfeits. Carole Mortimer

foisted on him to bother knowing anything about them apart from the fact they were all of marriageable age! Time enough for that, he had decided arrogantly, once one of them had agreed to become his wife. Except none of them had, he recalled grimly.

      ‘I am the eldest, my lord.’ Diana Copeland stepped further into the room, the sunlight immediately making her hair appear more gold than red. ‘And I wish to talk with you concerning my sisters.’

      ‘As your two sisters are not in this room at the moment I have absolutely no interest in discussing them.’ Gabriel frowned his irritation. ‘Whereas you—’

      ‘Then might I suggest you endeavour to make yourself interested in them?’ Diana advised coldly, the narrowness of her shoulders stiff with indignation.

      ‘My dear Diana—I trust, as your guardian, I may call you that?—I suggest that in future,’ he continued smoothly without bothering to wait for her answer, ‘you do not attempt to tell me what I should and should not interest myself in.’ A haughty young miss too used to having her own way presented no verbal or physical challenge for Gabriel after his years spent as an officer in the King’s army. ‘As such, I will be the one who decides what is or is not to be discussed between the two of us. The most immediate being—why it is you have chosen to come to London completely against my instructions?’ He stepped forwards into the room.

      Whatever sharp reply Diana had been about to make, in answer to this reminder of the arrogance with which she viewed Lord Gabriel Faulkner’s “instructions”, remained unsaid as he stepped forwards out of the sunlight and she found herself able to see him clearly for the first time.

      He was, quite simply … magnificent!

      No other word could completely describe the harsh beauty of that arrogantly handsome face. He possessed a strong, square jaw, chiselled lips, high cheekbones either side of a long blade of a nose, and his eyes—oh, those eyes!—of so dark a blue that they were the blue-black of a clear winter’s night. His dark hair was fashionably styled so that it fell rakishly upon his brow and curled at his nape, his black jacket fitted smoothly across wide and muscled shoulders, the silver waistcoat beneath of a cut and style equally as fashionable, and his grey pantaloons clung to long, elegantly muscled legs, above black and perfectly polished Hessians.

      Yes, Lord Gabriel Faulkner was without doubt the most fashionable and aristocratically handsome gentleman that Diana had ever beheld in all of her one-and-twenty years—

      ‘Diana, I am still waiting to hear your reasons for disobeying me and coming up to town.’

      —as well as being the most arrogant!

      Having been deprived of her mother when she was but eleven years old, and with two sisters younger than herself, it had fallen to Diana to take on the role of mother to her sisters and mistress at her father’s home; as such, she had become more inclined to give instructions than to receive them.

      Her chin tilted. ‘Mr Johnston merely advised that you would call upon us at Shoreley Park as soon as was convenient after your arrival from Venice. As, at the time, he could not specify precisely when the date for that arrival might be, I took it upon myself to use my own initiative concerning how best to deal with this delicate situation.’

      Haughty as well as proud, Gabriel acknowledged with some inner amusement at the return of that challenging tilt to Diana Copeland’s delicious chin. She had also, if he was not mistaken, already developed a dislike for him personally as well as for his role as guardian to herself and her sisters.

      The latter Gabriel could easily understand; as he understood it from his lawyer, William Johnston, Diana had been mistress of Shoreley Park since the death of her mother, Harriet Copeland, some ten years ago. As such, she would not be accustomed to doing as she was told, least of all by a guardian she had never met.

      The former—a dislike of Gabriel personally—was not unprecedented, either, but it usually took a little longer than a few minutes’ acquaintance for that to happen. Unless, of course, Lady Diana had already taken that dislike to him before she had even met him?

      He quirked one dark, mocking brow. ‘And what

      “delicate situation” might that be?’

      A becoming blush entered the pallor of her cheeks, those blue eyes glittering as she obviously heard the mockery in his tone. ‘The disappearance of my two sisters, of course.’

      ‘What?’ Gabriel gave a start. He had known the Copeland sisters had chosen to absent themselves from Shoreley Park, of course, but once he was informed of Diana’s presence at Westbourne House, he had assumed that her sisters would either be staying with her here, or that she would at least have some idea of their whereabouts. ‘Explain yourself—clearly and precisely, if you please.’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.

      Diana gave him a withering glance. ‘Caroline and Elizabeth, being so … alarmed by your offer of marriage, have both taken it into their heads to leave the only home they have ever known and run off to heaven knows where!’

      Gabriel drew in a harsh breath as he carefully placed the glass of brandy down upon the table before turning his back to once again stare out of the window. While he’d known the three Copeland sisters had absented themselves from Shoreley Park, to now learn that his offer of marriage had actually caused the two younger sisters to run away, without so much as informing their older sister of where they were going, was not only insulting but, surprisingly, had also succeeded in affecting Gabriel when he had believed himself to be beyond reacting to such slights.

      He had been forced to live in disgrace all these years, always knowing that of all the people Gabriel had previously loved or cared about, only his friends Blackstone and Osbourne believed in his innocence. It had meant he hadn’t particularly cared, during his five years in the army, as to whether he lived or died. Ironically, it had been that very recklessness and daring that had succeeded in making him appear the hero in the eyes of his fellow officers and men.

      Realising that two young, delicately bred ladies had been so averse to even the suggestion of marriage to the infamous Lord Gabriel Faulkner that they had chosen to flee their home rather than contemplate such a fate had laid open a wound Gabriel had believed long since healed, if not forgotten …

      ‘My lord?’

      Gabriel breathed in deeply through his nose, hands clenched at his sides as he fought back the demons from his past, knowing they had no place in the here and now.

      ‘My lord, what—?’ Diana recoiled from the icy fury she could see in Gabriel’s arrogantly handsome features as he turned to glare across the room at her with eyes so dark and glittering they appeared as black as she imagined the devil’s might be.

      He arched a dark brow over those piercing blue-black eyes. ‘You did not feel the same desire to run away?’

      In truth, it had not even entered Diana’s head to do so. It was not in her nature to run away from trouble and she had been too busy since discovering her sisters’ absence for there to be any time to think of anything else. But if she had thought of it, what would she have done?

      Ten years of being the responsible daughter, the practical and sensible one, had taken their toll on the light-hearted and mischievous girl she had once been, until Diana could not recall what it was to behave impetuously or rashly, or to consider her own needs before those of her father and sisters. She would definitely not have left.

      ‘No, I did not,’ she stated bluntly.

      ‘And why was that?’ An almost predatory look had come over his face.

      Diana straightened her shoulders. ‘I—’

      Quite what she had been about to say to Gabriel she could not be sure as the butler chose that moment to enter with a tray of tea things and place them on the table beside the fireplace. A tray of tea things set for two, Gabriel noted with some amusement; obviously, from that flicker of disdain he had seen on the fair Diana’s face a few minutes ago, she did not approve of the imbibing of strong liquor before luncheon, if