Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) by Mary Balogh Page A

looking into Moira Hayes’s wide, shocked eyes, shielding them with his body from the view of their cheering, applauding audience. “If you must stand there, ma’am, then you must suffer the consequences.”
    He handed her one of the glasses. But her hand, when she reached for it, was trembling. She returned it to her side and looked up at him.
    “I am not thirsty after all,” she said.
    “Steady, Moira,” he said. “It is Christmas, and I have some relatives who derive enormous amusement from other people’s embarrassment. I have spent two whole days doing nothing but kiss aunts and cousins and any other lady who is unfortunate enough to alight under one of these abominations when I am within striking distance. The relatives laugh and cheer and applaud every time. One wonders what they will do for entertainment once the holiday is over and the mistletoe comes down. Doubtless something will crop up. They seem almost alarmingly easy to please. One is left questioning the state of their intellect.”
    He talked until the startled look went from her eyes. She recovered herself rather quickly and took the glass from his hand when he offered it again. She drank determinedly from it.
    “I came tonight because Sir Edwin was set on it,” she said. “But he is planning to return home tomorrow and to stay there until he comes back for our wedding in the spring. I hope thatbetween now and then you will not feel obliged to continue the connection with Penwith.”
    “I imagine,” he said, “that my great-grandfather sentenced yours because he did not wish to have his own connection with the trade exposed. I imagine that guilt and the contempt of those in the know was almost as great a punishment to him as transportation was to his victim. Is my family still to feel the guilt and yours to feel the shame?”
    “You know very well,” she said scornfully, “that what is between your family and mine now, my lord, has nothing whatsoever to do with that old feud. Perhaps an eight-year absence has helped you to trivialize and even forget what—”
    But she broke off abruptly, smiled brightly, and sipped from her glass again. Kenneth looked over his shoulder to find Sir Edwin Baillie approaching.
    “I cannot find words to describe the full extent of my gratification at such a marked degree of civility, my lord,” he said. “To single out my affianced bride by leading her into a set at the Dunbarton ball when there are so many other distinguished ladies who might be so honored is a gesture of true neighborliness. To lead her to the refreshment table afterward is a mark, if I may make so bold as to suggest it, of sincere friendship. This is a felicitous start to the new amity between Dunbarton Hall and Penwith Manor.”
    And doubtless, Kenneth thought, the man would have gone into raptures and counted it as a compliment to himself if he had seen the Earl of Haverford kiss his betrothed beneath the mistletoe. He inclined his head.
    But having delivered himself of this speech, Sir Edwinproceeded to look decidedly anxious. “Word has it,” he said, “that it is beginning to snow outside, my lord. Your servants have confirmed the fact though they assure me that the fall is light.”
    “And we are safe and warm inside, sir,” Kenneth said with a smile. “But I should be seeing to my guests in the ballroom. Please do join Miss Hayes with a glass of punch.”
    Sir Edwin felt obliged to express effusive thanks, but he was not prepared to drop the matter of the snow. It appeared that he was fearful it would fall thickly enough during the night to prevent his leaving for home on the morrow. And with his mother dangerously ill—Miss Hayes, he added, might object that his sister’s letter, which had arrived just this morning, had made no such assertion, but his lordship must pardon him for having sufficient knowledge of his sisters, especially of Christobel, the eldest, to be able to read between the lines of a letter as well as on