Amanda McCabe Read Online Free PDF Page A

situation. Before she could stumble to the door, though, Lord Morley returned, a cup of tea in his hand. The fragile, pink-flowered china looked tiny and absurd in his long, elegant fingers.
    “Here,” he said. “You should sit down, and drink this.” With his free hand, he clasped her arm and led her to the nearest settee.
    “It is nothing, Lord Morley,” she protested, and tried to draw away from his strangely disturbing touch. He was too strong for her, though, and did not let go until she was safely seated. “A mere headache.”
    “It is no wonder your head aches,” he said. “Listening to those clucking women all morning is enough to give anyone the megrims!” He handed her the cupof tea, and went on in a perfect imitation of Lady Stone-Smythe’s fluting tones. “ ‘Oh, Mrs. Chase, my dear Harriet is
so
fond of playing the harp! You
must
allow her more time with the music master, she is
so
fond of him—I mean, fond of
music
.’ ”
    Rosalind nearly choked on the sip of tea she had just taken. She knew she should not laugh at him, not find him funny in the least—it would only encourage his outrageous behavior, and it was surely rude to poor Lady Stone-Smythe. Yet she could not seem to help herself. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hold in the inelegant giggles.
    “You see? Your color is better already, Mrs. Chase,” he said, and knelt down beside her. He grinned in an infuriatingly satisfied manner.
    “None of Lady Stone-Smythe’s daughters is named Harriet,” was all Rosalind could think to say.
    “Ah, but you knew it was meant to be Lady Stone-Smythe. It must have been a worthy effort on my part.”
    “Yes, indeed, Lord Morley,” Rosalind said tartly. Her dizziness was subsiding, and she felt a bit more like herself. Not like a woman who stared at rakes, thinking how handsome they were. “You ought to be treading the boards.”
    “So I think, but my family would simply not hear of it. I must content myself with poetry.”
    “Yes, your poetry.” Rosalind swallowed the last of her tea, grateful for the strength of the smoky brew even if it was a bit cold by now. “Did Lady Stone-Smythe manage to lure you to her little literary evening?”
    “She has been trying to for at least a month.” As he shook his head in exasperation, his black raven’s wing of hair fell over his brow, and he impatiently pushed it back.
    Rosalind stared down at him, kneeling there on one knee beside her. “It is most improper for you to be there on the floor, Lord Morley,” she said, yet there was not as much heat in the words as she would usuallyhave put there. For once, she did not feel like scolding on a point of etiquette. She
did
want to touch that wave of hair, to see if it was as satiny as it appeared.
    She curled her fingers tightly around the cup, and said, “It is not proper for you to be in here at all.”
    “You were ill, Mrs. Chase. Would it have been proper for me to leave you alone with your pain?”
    “You could have fetched one of the teachers.”
    “They were all conversing with the parents of your pupils. I thought it best not to interrupt them.”
    Rosalind suspected that perhaps he had just not wanted all the ladies in his harem snatching at his sleeves again.
    Her lips tightened at the thought.
    Lord Morley moved up off the floor, but only to sit beside her on the settee. Rosalind, shocked by the sudden movement, slid back as far as she could against the arm of the settee. His heat still reached out to her, curling around her, beckoning her closer.
    She turned away from it, away from
him
, pulling her skirts to the side so they would not brush against his boots. This was the man who was encouraging Allen in his wild ways, she reminded herself. This was not a man to be friends with, to sit close to. “Why were you in my office in the first place, Lord Morley? Was there something you wanted?”
    His gaze slanted toward her, dark, surprisingly intense. “Wanted, Mrs. Chase? I suppose