The Reluctant Suitor by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
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Wiltshire countryside, England
Northeast of Bath and Bradford on Avon
September 5, 1815
Lady Adriana Sutton whirled through the gracefully arched
portico of Randwulf Manor, spilling effervescent laughter
over her shoulder as she deftly avoided the reaching hand of an
eager young swain. In copying her lead, he had jumped down
from his mount and raced after her in his zeal to catch her
before she could dash up the stone steps and escape into the
Jacobean mansion of her family’s closest neighbors and friends.
At her approach, the massive door was drawn open and, with
quiet dignity, a tall, thin, elderly butler stepped aside to await
her entrance.
“Oh, Harrison, you’re positively a dear,” Adriana warbled
cheerily as she flitted through the spacious vestibule. Safely
ensconcing herself in the hall beyond the steward, she spun
about and struck a playfully triumphant pose for the benefit of
her pursuer who came to a teetering halt at the threshold,
causing her to lift a brow in curious wonder. As zealously as
Roger Elston had dogged her heels in his nearly year-long quest
toclaim her for his very own, even intruding when not invited,
it seemed as if his dread of the late Lord Sedgwick Wyndham,
the sixth Marquess of Randwulf, had actually intensified rather
than abated in the months following the nobleman’s death.
If there had been occasions when Lord Sedgwick had grown
exasperated by the apprentice’s impromptu visits, it certainly
hadn’t been the elder’s fault, for Roger had seemed unusually
tenacious in his endeavor to win her hand, as if that had been
even remotely possible. His gall had reached amazing limits.
Whenever formal invitations had been extended to select
groups or close friends were enjoying private dinners with the
Wyndhams or her own family, as long as she had been a
participant, her single-minded admirer would present himself
on some pretext or another, if only to speak with her for a
moment or two. It made her rue the day she had ever yielded to
his first unannounced visit to her own home at Wakefield
Manor. Even after his audacious proposal of marriage, which
her father had answered forthrightly by explaining that she was
already committed, Roger had continued to chase her hither
and yon.
As much as she had foreseen the need to issue a stern
directive that would have permanently banished the apprentice
from her presence, Adriana had not yet subdued the qualms
that plagued her. At times, Roger seemed like such a lonely
individual, clearly evincing his troubled youth. Whenever she
came nigh to severing their association, she found herself
inundated with reminders of all the helpless creatures that her
lifelong companion, Samantha Wyndham, and she had once
nurtured as children. To exhibit less compassion to a human
being in desperate need of a little kindness had seemed
inequitable in comparison.
“I do believe that dastardly fellow is afraid of you, Harrison,”
Adriana teasingly surmised, lifting her riding crop to indicate
her boyishly handsome admirer. “His reluctance to confront
such a man as yourself has plainly led to my advantage.
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