AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That’s why the fictitious kiss had shaken her to the core. A longing for physical intimacy wasn’t in her vocabulary. She’d exorcised any such need long ago.
“He climbed through the library window, handed me a rose, and I... I had some preposterous idea that he was wooing me because I was special. He woos every female he meets. It’s what he does. He’s a rogue of the first order.”
“Climbed through your window? How very Shakespearean of him,” observed Isobel. “Did he compare you to a summer’s day?”
“I dropped my spectacles on his head. He climbed up the rose trellis to return them.”
“I’m even more confused,” said Viola. “Why did you drop your spectacles on his head?”
“Thewhydoesn’t matter.” The hot flush of humiliation had crept back up her neck. “What matters is that it will never, ever happen again. I will never succumb to irrational imaginings about handsome rogues ever again. I’m quite impervious now.”
“Oh, Beatrice,” said Viola with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “Only you would castigate yourself for something that never even happened.”
They didn’t understand. To her it had been real. Vividly, exquisitely, real. So exquisite, in fact, that an actual kiss from Wright could never possibly live up to the imaginary one.
“One imaginary kiss is hardly a reason not to—” Isobel was interrupted by a light knock on the door.
“Yes, Hobbs?”
“There’s a gentleman here to see you, my lady,” said the butler.
Beatrice sighed. “I suppose my mother has already arranged a call from Mayhew.”
“I don’t believe the person is in possession of a title, my lady. He’s a Mr. Stamford Wright. Shall I tell him you’re not at home?”
Wright.Here? The air left Beatrice’s lungs. How could that be?
Viola clapped her hands together. “Tell him she’s at home and receiving visitors, but only if they have offerings of roses and have composed at least three sonnets to her amber eyes.”
“Viola!” Beatrice remonstrated.
“You’re not frightened of him, are you?” whispered Viola with a scheming glint in her green eyes. “You’re not afraid that when you see him you’ll immediately imagineyou know what?”
“I’m not the least bit frightened. I’m perfectly in control of my thoughts.” The idea that she might succumb to such witless wanderings twice was unthinkable.
“I’d like to have a look at your Mr. Wright,” saidIsobel. “Why don’t you invite him in? Aren’t you curious about why he’s here?”
“He’s not mine,” Beatrice replied indignantly. “And no doubt he’s here to see my brother. He kept asking when he’d return. He has some matter regarding the duke’s land agent to discuss with him.”
“Then you have to invite him in,” said Viola. “It could be important.”
“He wouldn’t tell me what it was in Cornwall. I don’t know why he would tell me now.”
“But I want to see the good-looking rogue who gave our sensible Beatrice such longings,” said Viola. “You just said that you were impervious to rogues so what can be the harm in a brief conversation?”
Quite right. She had nothing to fear from seeing Wright again. This was her chance to prove to herself how unaffected she was by him. She had her friends by her side. Their presence would stop her from succumbing to any ninny-ish impulses.
With that comforting thought, she shook the bread crumbs from her skirts. “Send him in, Hobbs.”
“Mr. Stamford Wright,” the butler announced. “Of the Royal Navy.”
Ford had never been announced before, not that he’d ever wanted to be, though it did add a certain amount of swagger to his stride.
He’d told the servant that he wanted an audience with the dowager. When he’d learned she wasn’t at home, and that only Lady Beatrice was here to receive him, his heart had done a suspicious little jig in his chest.
He hadn’t come all this way not to have his questions answered by someone.
He entered a large, airy room done up in clashing shades of pink and burgundy.
