Lady Belling's Secret Read Online Free PDF

Francesca back to his embrace, she was gone. There was no sleeping beauty, soft and pliant from lovemaking, asleep in his bed. He sat up, and the curtain serving as a blanket fell to his lap.
    “Francesca,” he called out, because that was how he’d come to think of her now. Francesca. Frankie was a girl’s name, a childish nickname. “Francesca?”
    Nothing. Silence.
    He stood up from the mattress and the curtain fell completely away, leaving him nude to pad across the expanse of the room. He opened the door to the adjoining Countess’s suite and, for good measure, called out her name again. She was indeed gone. Her clothes, which had littered his floor, were also conspicuously absent.
    His trousers were discovered crumpled underneath a heap of ugly drapery, and he tugged them on over his bare ass. The sun coming in from the windows had a decided slant, telling him he’d slept most of the day away. Amazing. He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time since he’d learned of the accident.
    When had she left? He should have escorted her home. That was very badly done, Tom. He’d wait until dinner and go over to the house when he could be fairly certain everyone would be there. He was even more excited about seeing his second family after today’s events than he’d been when he first arrived back in London. He’d wanted to take a hansom directly from the dock to see them all but there had been so much to do, so many details to take care of. Still, he’d only been back in town a day.
    Crazy, but after today, this whole new life felt a little less overwhelming.
    He’d had a bit of a plan, actually more of a malformed idea, to enact upon his return to London and society. Of course, when he’d left in such a hurry, he stupidly assumed he would come back a war hero, celebrated and feted around town. He’d live the bachelor life for several more decades. Beyond that, he’d never considered. He’d been so young and so stupid - stupid and impetuous - and had had no idea what he’d pledged himself to when he had run off to war.
    These days he had no desire whatsoever to swan about town, having glasses raised to so-called honorable deeds. He had long since abandoned those ridiculous ideas well before his entire family was obliterated in that carriage accident. And wasn’t that absurd? How many times had he cursed his father and wished him dead? Or his brother for his disloyalty? Or his mother for her coldhearted worthlessness? How many times had he resolved to despise them all forever? But still, the carriage accident had been horrific, and he was sorry that he’d ever wanted for anything so awful.
    Now that he was the Earl of Harrington, he’d come home knowing he’d be inundated with responsibilities.
    He arrived at the front door of the Morewether townhouse only to find the family not at home.
    “To the theater, my lord,” their butler told him. “’Tis very good to see you though.”
    “I feel very good to be seen.” Thomas cast a glance around the front hall. It felt exactly the same, like home.
    “We were all sorry to hear about the earl and the rest.” The man ducked his head, in deference to the dead, Thomas supposed.
    “Yes, well, thank you.”
    Thomas had to smile when the butler laid his hand on his shoulder. “We all think you’ll do fine, though. You were always a good lad.”
    “Thank you for the vote of confidence,” he said. “Please tell the duchess I was by. I wouldn’t want her to think she wasn’t a priority.”
    “Most assuredly, my lord.”
    Thomas had ridden over to the house instead of taking a carriage. He had been naive to think the family wouldn’t have had any plans for an evening during the season. Five years away and he was completely out of step.
    Now that his evening plans had fallen through, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He no longer knew where the card games were played, he didn’t feel like going to the club and certainly not to one of the