Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,31

swung around to meet Lord Stanford’s mocking gaze.

‘I am delighted to see you out of mourning.’

‘At Lady Keswick’s request. She thought I would find the heat of the sun unbearable.’ Why explain? From the look on his face, he thought she had dressed for his benefit, and to her shame, she had wondered about his reaction as Ellie had helped her dress.

‘Then we have the sun to thank for a lovely sight,’ he said smoothly.

The man was a practised rake and seducer. Such pleasantries would drip from his tongue for any female on whom he set his sights, but still, the compliment pleased her. More fool she. Because no matter how she tried to retain a calm appearance, her passions ran hot beneath her skin. Why shouldn’t she enjoy the attentions of a handsome man for one afternoon? As of tonight, her time here was done. Just for one day she would like to forget her troubles, pretend she was an ordinary young woman out on a picnic with her peers.

She twirled her sunshade and smiled at him. ‘You are very kind.’

His expression warmed. ‘Shall we walk?’ He held out his arm. She rested her hand on it and strolled beside him.

The party wandered in twos and threes along the beach, while Lady Keswick sat queenlike in her wheeled chair beneath a sunshade.

‘Is this not just divine?’ Mrs Mallow called out as she strolled towards them on Mr Hapton’s arm. Her peacock-blue muslin gown left nothing of her lower limbs to the imagination as the wind moulded it to her form.

‘It is, indeed,’ Stanford said, raising his voice to carry over the hiss of breaking wavelets. ‘The sand is so flat when the tide is out, I thought we might play a game of cricket after lunch. The ladies against the gentlemen.’

‘Capital idea,’ Fitzwilliam said, bringing Mrs De Lacy to join them.

The widow hooked her arm through Rosa’s. ‘You do play, don’t you, Mrs Travenor? And may I say, it is so good to see you out of black. Not that it didn’t suit you,’ she added hastily. ‘But that shade of blush looks stunning on you.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Lord Stanford said with a wink and a devastating smile.

Her heart picked up speed. Her breathing shortened. She felt as if she was in a runaway carriage heading downhill. Dash it all, no matter what her head was telling her about him, her stupid heart basked in his approval.

Lunch over, most of the party once more dispersed along the beach. Garth remained stretched out on the sand, peeling an orange for Lady Smythe. He’d deliberately chosen to sit beside her on the blankets, hoping for a quiet word. Penelope had looked thoroughly nervous when he sat down. And so she should.

Mrs Travenor, on the other hand, didn’t know the meaning of fear. He glanced at her seated beside Lady Keswick, her fingers drawing patterns in the sand, her thoughts clearly far away.

In her dreary blacks, she had been exotically unattainable. In peach-coloured muslin, it was as if an orchid had bloomed. His first sight of her waiting to board the carriage had taken away his breath. She’d dressed her hair differently, too, no doubt to accommodate the fetching straw bonnet’s low crown and wide brim. Black curls framed her face, and a low knot of thick black ropes nestled at her nape.

He wanted to see that hair unbound. Spread around her shoulders. Preferably her naked shoulders.

He handed another orange segment to Lady Smythe, aware of Rose’s darting glances and puzzled expression.

Inwardly, he cursed.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t keep two women dangling, but he would have preferred to devote his whole attention to Mrs Travenor. Penelope was a self-imposed duty, but one he could not abandon. Not and look at himself in the mirror, at any rate.

‘You don’t look well, Penelope,’ he murmured so no one else could hear. ‘You don’t belong here. Why not go home?’

She bit her lip, then lowered her voice. ‘Home to what? Mark has gone away on business.’

He wanted to curse.

She twisted the ends of her bonnet’s ribbons around her fingers. ‘Mark doesn’t care what I do and I don’t care what he does.’

He blinked at the bitterness in her voice. And the hurt.

It occurred to him that the blame wasn’t all on one side. Not once in the year of Penelope’s come out had she behaved with anything but utmost decorum until she met Mark. For all her brave smiles, she was clearly out of