The Notorious Lord by Nicola Cornick Page A

some ways, a terrible temptation to him. ‘Stay here with me for a while. We have barely had chance to talk yet—’
    But Rachel was already halfway down the path to the stile. Cory watched her go, a slight frown on his face. It felt as though she was running away from him. Cory clenched his fists, then slowly relaxed. Perhaps he had frightened her, stirring everything up with his comments about passion and his refusal to stay neatly in the place marked out for him as her friend. He could tell that she was uncomfortable with the idea of their friendship changing into something else and yet it was not dislike of him that made her run away. He had seen the mix of desire and curiosity in her eyes the previous morning by the river, heard the breathless note inher voice last night when she had made light of his suggestion that he might kiss her…
    He picked up his trowel again and sighed as he started to scrape away at a piece of pottery half-buried in the edge of the trench. His trowel caught the lip of the vessel and it shattered, several shards tumbling down into the ditch. Cory swore. He bent to pick them up and stood cradling them in his hand, looking in the direction that Rachel had gone. So now she was coming between him and his work. He was thinking about her when he should be concentrating.
    Cory placed the pieces of pottery in a basket and shook his head slowly. He knew that he was fortunate to have Rachel Odell as a friend. He would be a fool to put that friendship at risk when it was one of the most precious things that he possessed. Nor could the friendship grow into anything else, for they wanted different things. In fact, he epitomised all the things that Rachel was rejecting, the travel and the excitement and the restlessness of an unsettled life.
    Nevertheless, Cory watched her all the way back to the house. Despite his best intentions and Rachel’s wariness, he had the conviction that something had to change.
     
    In the cool of the hallway Rachel paused and pressed her palms to her hot cheeks. She was not at all sure why she was feeling so disturbed. It was not simply the heat of the day that had made her feel so light-headed, for she had lived in far hotter climates than Suffolk in June. The conversation with Cory had made her feel self-conscious, and then she had compounded her folly by rushing away from him. No doubt he would think she had run mad. She was half-persuaded that she had. Cory had never had that effect on her before. At least not before their encounter by the river the previous day. Since then something about his behaviour towards her had unsettled her. He had disturbed her the previous night and he had done so again now…

    ‘Do you think me attractive?’
    ‘I have never really thought about it.’
    But she had thought about it. She had thought about it and she had looked at him and in that moment she had felt, not seen, what a very attractive man he was. The knowledge was so sudden and so shocking that she had been completely dumbfounded. It had been like the moment he had swept her into his arms at her début ball, only much more powerful. It felt exciting and it felt all wrong, because Cory was her friend and she simply did not think of him in such terms. And when he had fixed her with that clear grey gaze and asked her about passion, she had remembered his comment about kissing her and had felt a wrench of anticipation shiver along her nerve endings, and a most unaccustomed warmth in the pit of her stomach. She had wanted Cory to kiss her, but when he had smiled and gravely wished her luck, she had also felt a huge relief.
    She looked at her reflection in the pier glass. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She looked rather pretty. Rachel stared, arrested by the sight of her high colour and sparkling gaze. She looked…excited. She looked as though in some strange way her feelings were awake…
    The opening of a door further down the hall distracted her. Sir Arthur Odell