Читать книгу Improper Pleasure - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 4

London, 1876

It was a day like any other. Yet there was something enchanted in the air that made Amelia think that this particular Tuesday would be very different from all the others.

Despite the real unease gripping her, Amelia looked about her surroundings, recognizing the fact that everything was just as it ought to be. There was nothing, not even a warning softly whispered through the tree branches that predicted what was to come.

Wiping away the dew on the bench, Amelia sat on the stone slab and looked around the little copse which was awakening to life after the long winter. With a sigh, she lifted her face to the cool breeze and closed her eyes, relishing the sounds of chirping birds, the rustle of the wind through the leafless tree branches and the promise of a beautiful spring day that scented the air. Even the funerary statues surrounding her seemed to glow with beauty, wonder and life.

Most would say that a cemetery in the heart of London was a macabre and disturbing place to spend a few hours of solitude. But Amelia found comfort in the quiet, in the privacy of her little spot, as if it were her very own garden.

How long it was before she heard the sound of carriage wheels clacking against cobbles, she had no idea. Despite the dew smudging her spectacles and the black lace veil she used to cover her face, Amelia could make out a well-appointed carriage with shining black lacquered doors and an elaborate gold crest. Tassels, fixed in the center of the window shades, swayed gently back and forth, drawing her eye to the lavish length of gold bullion fringe that edged the scalloped contours of the crème velvet shades. She recognized the carriage and the regal crest it bore. Knew the features of the occupant as well as she knew her own.

Yes, she knew the man inside the carriage, but did he know her? Could he see her? Did he know who it was standing amid the statutes with her face veiled?

There was a flicker of darkness—a shadow—that moved across the pale interior, compelling her to look deep within the carriage. She had never seen him like this, at this time of day. It had never been just the two of them, looking at each other. And even though a lane and fence lay between them, Amelia had never felt more intimate with him than she did now.

The shadow shifted once more in the depths of the carriage interior. Then she saw him, another movement of sifting light that revealed him and his black, wild-looking hair and penetrating eyes that seemed to burn straight into her as if he could see through her lace disguise.

What she wouldn’t trade in order to have him see her—to notice that she existed.

He settled back against the cushions and the carriage moved on, rolling down the cobbles. Amelia could no longer see his beautiful face, and she was glad for it. For this obsession was only one-sided. It could never be more than that—a secret, forbidden fantasy—no matter how much she wished for it to be otherwise.

Turning, Amelia walked away from the copse, toward the path that would lead her back to the gate—and the reality of her life.