A Lady's Trust (The Rose Room Rogues #2) - Callie Hutton Page 0,2

he raised his brows even higher. “You do not possess an umbrella?”

She shook her head, wondering if she could make an escape before he called the Watch. Although truth be known, if they hauled her off to jail it would be better than what she had waiting for her at home.

No. She mis-spoke. Or rather, mis-thought. She had no home. Her horrid stepbrother, Randolph had committed the shocking offense of using her to pay a gambling debt to the ghastly Daniel Lyons. She felt the need to roll her eyes every time she thought of the man’s name.

Randolph, the Viscount Newton was her thirty-year old stepbrother. With nine years between them and no common parents, they’d never been close in the fifteen years their parents had been married to each other.

When not away at school, Randolph had spent a good part of his time teasing and tormenting her. When he grew to manhood, his form of torture turned to reminding her he was the heir and when his papa died, control over her person and dowry would pass to him. With her mother dead these past few years, and then her stepfather, the former Viscount Newton, it hadn’t taken long for the snake to drag her to London and offer her services as mistress to Mr. Lyons in lieu of paying his losses in a card game.

Once Randolph had told her to prepare herself because Mr. Lyons was to arrive at their doorstep in two days to ‘claim’ her, she had no choice but to run. Her dilemma was being without sufficient funds, and since she’d spent most of her life in the country, she had no friends in London to turn to, either.

Of course, it would have been better had she not panicked, and instead thought carefully about her circumstances and made a plan for herself before she fled the house. At least a plan better than tumbling through the window into this man’s office to escape the bad weather.

She cleared her throat, pushing her thoughts from her old dilemma to this new one. “Actually, I do possess an umbrella, but unfortunately, I do not have it with me.” She tugged her hand from the man’s hold and edged back toward the window, keeping her eye on him. “Now if you will excuse me. . .”

Quickly, he reached out and took her hand again. “No. I am not going to let you crawl back out the window and possibly break your neck.”

She huffed. What was it with men who thought they could tell one what to do and what not to do? She was a woman grown of twenty-one years.

Adopting a pleasant demeanor, she said, “No need to concern yourself, sir. I will be fine, I can assure you.” She wiped the rain from her cheeks. “I made it up here, didn’t I?”

Apparently, her attempt at levity fell flat as the man continued to stare at her. “You will tell me who you are, why you are dressed like a man, and why you climbed through my window.” He nodded in the direction of the window.

She shifted from one foot to the other. Mayhap if she gave him some information, he would let her go. “I am Miss Amelia Pence.” There was no point in offering her correct name. The last thing she needed was him tracking down her stepbrother. “It is quite wet out there and I saw the light in your window and hoped to spend only a short time attempting to dry off and warm up.” As if to validate her words, she shivered, then raised her chin.

There. She had given him an almost-honest answer.

“Did it not occur to you to enter through the front door to do the same?” She hated how he seemed to switch from anger to laughing at her. “And why the outfit?” He flicked his finger up and down.

He was becoming quite vexing. Amelia drew herself up, attempting to look impressive even though she was in trousers, soaking wet and just made a complete cake of herself by falling through the window. “Why I am wearing these clothes is none of your concern, sir. Now if you will excuse me and seeing that you won’t let me go back out the way I entered, I will just use that door behind you to make my way downstairs and exit the building.”

Feeling less confident than her words, she moved to go around him and came to a complete halt when he stepped