Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,3

that’s correct,” she conceded.

It had taken her a month to accept that her best friend had betrayed her. At first, Elizabeth had told Guinevere that Asher had lured her to the library in Guinevere’s home during the busy ball, and as horrible as that had been to hear, it had been even worse to think that her best friend since childhood had been disloyal. But when faced with evidence from her sisters, who’d seen Elizabeth and Asher laughing and talking, and then sneaking to the library together, it had been much harder to deny that Guinevere had been both betrayed and made a fool of.

But she was stubborn, to be certain, and she’d tried to cling to hope until a chance encounter with Asher’s father in front of the milliner’s shop had opened her eyes and shattered her heart. The tips of her ears burned now with the shame his words had brought her when he’d said, “I’m sorry my son pursued you to spite me. It was not well-done of him to use you thusly.”

In the face of that revelation, the truth had to be accepted. What she’d believed to be a real courtship had been a ruse. And somewhere along the way, he and Elizabeth had been drawn to each other. The worst of it all—Well, she still to this day could not decide what was the worst of it. It had all hurt like a mortal wound.

She’d gone around for months muttering, “Et tu, Brute?” under her breath until her mother threatened to send her to Bedlam if she didn’t cease her behavior. She’d stopped, of course, but that didn’t mean she had not felt like Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, betrayed by those he’d trusted.

Guinevere forced herself to shrug as if the past no longer haunted her or shaped her actions, her thoughts, and her future. She longed for the day it would be the absolute truth.

“Fine. Elizabeth was a willing participant in your scandalous liaison,” Guinevere amended.

She could swear she heard him sliding his teeth back and forth. Perhaps, he’d crack one. The thought turned up her lips.

After a moment, silence fell, and then he said, “It’s interesting how ye choose to twist the truth about what happened. I suppose it would be too difficult to face yerself in the looking glass if ye admitted the actual facts.”

Her brows dipped together. Did he mean Elizabeth had pursued him? Even if that was true, it changed nothing. He had used Guinevere in his personal vendetta against his father, a fact he likely did not realize she knew. But she’d eat a mud pie before telling him and allowing him to comprehend the depth of her humiliation.

A sudden pain pierced her head and neck. Whether from the conversation or the fall, she was not certain. She reached up and slid a hand over her cramping muscles.

“Did ye injure yerself?”

He could have been an actor for how sincere his concern sounded.

“Certainly not,” she snapped. “Do you think me the sort of woman to be injured from a small fall?”

“Nay, Guin. I think it would take much more than that to injure the likes of ye.”

The likes of me?

She frowned. What did he mean by that? No. No, she would not allow herself to wonder or to care about anything Asher did or said. She drew herself up to her full height, which irritatingly only put her head level with his shoulders. “Lady Guinevere, if you please.”

“As ye wish it, Lady Guinevere.”

Gawds. Why did the way he said her name still have to sound so enticing?

“If you’re endeavoring to be accommodating, perhaps you would depart now and find your way back to the ballroom that you never should have left.”

“If ye remember, the uninteresting and the vain drove me out here.”

“All the way to my bedchamber window?” she demanded. “Why not just retreat to the pleasure gardens? This seems an unnecessarily long way to come to get away from those who annoy you.”

“Well, I was in the pleasure gardens, but I saw something that interested me. Care to know what the something was, or are ye afraid to find out?”

For better or worse, she’d never been one to retreat from someone questioning her mettle. “You have me on tenterhooks,” she said, making sure her voice was as blasé as possible. “Do scandalize me.”

“It was the strangest sight.” His voice dipped low, mesmerizing. He always had been an excellent storyteller. Apparently, his knack for drawing a listener in had not dulled