The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер

not yet had chance to enjoy even her first Season.’

      ‘Is it only because he is my younger brother?’ he guessed shrewdly.

      Mariah gave a determined shake of her head. ‘I also have no doubt that, if Christina were ever to become your brother’s wife, you would make her life, as your sister-in-law, nothing but a misery.’

      He stiffened. ‘You are insulting, madam, to believe I would ever treat any woman so shabbily.’

      ‘You would treat any daughter of mine more than shabbily,’ she insisted. ‘And I do not want that for Christina. She deserves so much more than that.’ So much more than Mariah had suffered herself as Martin’s wife, unloved by her husband and disapproved of and ignored by his family for her more humble beginnings. ‘No.’ She shuddered at the thought of Christina suffering the same fate. ‘If Lord Anthony should ask, I will not ever give my blessing to such a match.’

      Darian frowned darkly. ‘And what of your daughter’s feelings on the matter? Have you considered that perhaps she might return Anthony’s affections? If not now, then at some future date?’

      ‘It is perhaps a possibility that she may one day believe she returns those feelings,’ Mariah allowed grudgingly. ‘But at seventeen she is too young to know her own heart and mind.’

      ‘As you yourself were at the same age?’

      She stiffened. ‘Again, we were not talking about me.’

      ‘Then perhaps we should be.’

      ‘No, we will not,’ Mariah informed Wolfingham coldly. ‘Not now, nor at any time in the future.’

      Darian studied Mariah intently, knowing by the stubborn set of her mouth, and those flashing turquoise eyes, that she would not be moved on the subject of her own marriage.

      And so adding to the mystery that Mariah Beecham had become to him.

      A mystery that had already occupied far too much of his time and thoughts these past ten days.

      He gave a grimace. ‘Have you considered how your husband might have felt regarding an alliance between his daughter and the Hunter family?’

      Her chin rose. ‘I had no interest in my husband’s opinions whilst he was alive and I certainly have none now that he is dead.’

      Because, as he had begun to suspect, like so many marriages of the ton, the Beecham marriage had been one of convenience rather than a love match? A question of marrying wealth to a title? The wealth of Mariah’s father matched to Beecham’s title as the Earl of Carlisle?

      Darian’s own parents had married under similar circumstances, but they had been two of the lucky ones, in that they had come to feel a deep love and respect for each other, ensuring that their two sons had grown up in a family filled with that same love and respect.

      The fact that Mariah had only been seventeen to Beecham’s two and forty when their marriage took place, and the rumours of her numerous affairs since, would seem to imply she might not have been so fortunate.

      ‘That is a very enlightening comment,’ he said slowly.

      ‘Is it?’ Mariah returned scathingly. ‘I doubt I am the first woman to admit to having felt a lack of love for the man who was her husband.’

      ‘Your words implied a lack of respect, too.’

      Those eyes flashed again. ‘Respect has to be earned. It is not just given.’

      ‘And Carlisle did not earn yours?’

      ‘The feeling was mutual, I assure you.’

      ‘And yet the two of you had a daughter together.’

      A cold shiver ran down the length of Mariah’s spine as she remembered the night of Christina’s conception. A painful and frightening experience for Mariah and a triumphant one for Martin.

      Her gaze now avoided Wolfingham’s probing green one. ‘I believe it is time you left.’

      ‘Mariah—’

      ‘Now, Wolfingham!’ Before Mariah broke down completely. Something she dared not do, in front of the one man who had already somehow managed to get through the barrier Mariah had long ago placed about both her emotions and the memories of the past. For fear they might destroy her utterly.

      Darian had no idea what would have happened next. Whether he would have acceded to Mariah’s request for him to leave, or whether he would have followed his own instincts and instead taken Mariah in his arms and comforted her. This talk of her marriage to Carlisle seemed to have shaken her cool self-confidence in a way nothing else had.

      Instead, their privacy was interrupted as the butler entered the room bearing a card upon a silver tray, which he proceeded to present to Mariah.

      She picked up the card and quickly read it, before tucking it into the pocket of her gown as she spoke to her butler. ‘Please show his Lordship into my private parlour, Fuller,’ she instructed briskly. ‘And then return here and show his Grace out.’ Her gaze was challenging as she turned and waited for the butler to leave before looking across the room at Darian.

      Darian breathed out his frustration, both with what was obviously Mariah’s dismissal of him and a burning curiosity to know the identity of the man the dismissed butler was even now escorting to Mariah’s private parlour.

      Which was utterly ridiculous of him.

      He had lived for two and thirty years without having the slightest interest in Mariah Beecham, or any of her friendships, and for him to now feel disgruntled, even jealous, of this other man was ludicrous on his part.

      And yet Darian could not deny that was exactly how he now felt.

      Just as he knew Mariah was equally as determined that her two male visitors would not meet each other.

      ‘I believe I am perfectly capable of showing myself out, Mariah,’ Darian informed her harshly.

      She blinked. ‘Fuller will return in just a moment.’

      ‘And I am ready to depart now.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Good day to you, Mariah.’ Darian bowed to her stiffly before crossing the room and stepping out into the cavernous hallway, only to come to an abrupt halt as he saw the identity of Mariah’s caller.

      ‘Wolfingham!’ Lord Aubrey Maystone turned at the bottom of the staircase to greet him enthusiastically; eyes alight with pleasure as he strode forward to shake Darian warmly by the hand. ‘How fortuitous this is, for you are just the man I wanted to see.’

      Darian failed to see how that was possible, when Maystone could not have had any idea that Darian would be at Mariah Beecham’s home this morning.

      Or could he?

      As Darian knew only too well, from working so closely with the older man for so many years, Maystone was deceptively wily. A man capable of weaving webs within webs and all without losing sight of a single thread of those intricate weavings.

      Although Darian seriously doubted that the other man’s role as spymaster was his reason for calling upon Mariah this morning.

      Indeed, Mariah’s instruction, for Maystone to be taken to her private parlour, left only one conclusion in regard to Maystone’s presence here this morning: that the older man was indeed the man Mariah was currently intimately involved with and his joviality was now merely a politeness in front of Mariah’s butler.

       Chapter Five

      Mariah had hurriedly followed Wolfingham out into the entrance hall and had arrived just in time to witness Aubrey Maystone warmly greeting and shaking the younger man by the hand. Much, she noted ruefully, to Darian Hunter’s stony-faced displeasure.