Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,42

nice red glow in the middle. Its warmth permeated through her skirts. The scent of burning wood and coal filled the room. Cosy. Intimate. Comforting.

How could she be comforted with a man wearing nothing but a sheet? A man she found far too attractive for her own good. A man renowned for his powers of seduction.

Despite his assertions, given her weakness where he was concerned, she’d be a fool not to think him dangerous.

Forewarned was forearmed. Wasn’t it?

Chapter Eight

‘Here we are.’ She looked up to find Stanford with his arms full of red velvet cushions. ‘I remembered seeing these in the library. More comfortable than sitting on the floor.’

He spread them around until they looked like a bed.

Feeling a little foolish, she sat on one edge. He was right, it was more comfortable. She hugged her arms around her knees, careful to keep her feet well covered, and gazed into the fire, while he settled himself beside her.

The lamp wavered and went out. Now all they had was the glow from the fire to see by. There might be some remnants of candles in the library, she recalled, but they wouldn’t last long. And why would they need more light? There was nothing to do.

It was a bit like being in a cave; with the ladder-back chairs draped in clothes behind them and the stone chimney breast with its fire in front, she could almost imagine them spending the night on the side of a mountain, isolated from the world, living in their cave with no one to bother them.

Startled by her odd thoughts, she blinked and broke the flame’s hold on her vision.

‘This is cosy,’ he said dreamily, as if he, too, were caught in another world. ‘Too bad I don’t have a deck of cards.’

‘It is too dark to play cards.’

He grunted. ‘Then what shall we do to pass the time while we dry?’

She shrugged.

‘I know. You can tell me all about yourself.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ she said, suddenly wary.

‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Here. I told you that.’

‘And when you left?’

‘I went to school. I told you that, too.’

‘What about Mr Travenor? How did you meet him?’

Blankly, she stared at him.

‘Your husband,’ he said with a frown.

Good heavens, she’d almost forgotten her invented husband. She struggled to remember the tale she had told Lady Keswick when she applied for the position of companion last month. She’d read that the elderly woman had bought the house next to Gorham Place in The Times. Then she’d seen her advertisement for a companion.

‘I’m sorry.’ His deep voice held compassion. ‘If it is too painful for you to talk about him, please don’t think you must. I should not have asked.’

She looked away, unable to look him in the eyes and tell untruths. ‘I do prefer not to talk about him.’ That at least was a half-truth. Who would want to talk about a man who existed only in her imagination? In her mind she’d created the perfect husband, honourable, faithful, the image of her father. Only the image now seemed tarnished.

Father had changed. The man she recalled with such fondness would never have married another woman, never have sent his beloved girls to a school far away in the north, and never have not visited them.

For years, she had waited for him to visit.

She could not put the two men together. The laughing man who had spun her around and who had put her on her first pony—

Stanford muttered something under his breath.

She turned her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I said I’m an idiot. My callous question upset you.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking about Mr Travenor. I was remembering growing up in this house.’

‘More sad memories?’

‘Not at all. They were the best times of my life. My father was kind, my mother adored him. He spoiled his girls, as he called us. We were happy here.’

‘You were lucky, then.’

‘Yes. There was always lots of laughter in this house. And singing.’ She bit the inside of her lip. It was wrong to be ashamed of Mama. She’d been a beautiful woman and had a truly exceptional voice. She deserved her daughters’ pride. ‘My mother was an opera singer before she met my father. She sang on the stage in Venice. My father fell in love with her the first time he saw her.’

Stanford straightened. ‘Good lord, and he married her?’

She smiled. ‘Much to his father’s annoyance. As my mother told it, Grandfather tried to have their marriage annulled because it was celebrated in a