Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

need to make sure my wife is willing to hand over the baby to the nurse and get some sleep.”
    And with that, Lord Ashby left them to their own devices, with only the rain to break the silence.
    Rain, which was annoyingly letting up.
    â€œI’ll need to write a note to my firm, letting them know I’ll be on the earl’s business all day.”
    â€œOf course,” she said, her eyes on the window and the lessening rain. “Do we just go to the army offices, or do we send a note first?”
    â€œWhy you?” he asked suddenly. “Why are you the one here, and not your uncle?”
    â€œMy uncle is running a business from the confines of a wheeled chair,” she replied.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said automatically. “I didn’t know that.”
    â€œI am here because there is no one else,” she said, standing and placing the thick shawl to the side. “And if Eleanor is making a mistake, as you put it . . . well, then who knows better than I what she’s going through?”
    He rose silently to his feet, unable to find a reply.
    This was not the Cecilia he remembered. This was not the wide-eyed, innocent girl who spoke in hopeful breaths. And he found himself wondering what the last ten years had been like for the Cecilia that stood before him. Because the trusting girl he knew was gone.
    As gone as the trusting fool he had been.
    â€œNow,” she said crisply, walking past him to the door, “shall we go?”
    In that one small movement, she nearly floored him.
    Lavender . She still smelled like lavender.
    Perhaps she hadn’t changed that much after all.

4
    T he carriage ride from Grosvenor Square to the Horse Guards Parade at St. James’s Palace was fairly short, and at this early hour of the morning, relatively uncrowded. The rain was stopping, leaving sunlight to sparkle off wet cobblestones and catch long drips from drainpipes. But as much as she tried to take in London passing by the window, none of it could hold her attention. Not when Theo Hudson was sitting opposite her.
    Taking up far too much space.
    When they had known each other before, Theo had been lanky, all limbs and a pulse of languid energy. As if he could spring up at any moment and do a back flip, but he simply chose not to. Now he was large, imposing, as if all that energy had solidified into hard muscle.
    â€œWhat?” he asked. And she realized she was staring.
    â€œNothing,” she said.
    â€œYou’re . . . watching me.”
    â€œSo?” she replied, trying very, very hard not to blush like a schoolgirl, but knowing that she failed miserably. “Should I not be wary of you? After all, I have no idea why you’re here.”
    â€œI am here because the earl asked me to be,” he said, sighing.
    â€œBut it doesn’t have to be you. It could have been a runner. It could have been a footman. I could have gone by myself.”
    He snorted—snorted!—at her.
    â€œI could . This is my responsibility. My family. You’re . . . spectating.”
    She turned her head to the window and tried to take in some of the sights. This was her first trip to London. She’d prepared for the journey, the way a teacher prepares. She read a guidebook of all the things that were worth seeing—although she doubted she would have time to go to Astley’s Amphitheatre or the opera—and made certain she had a map constantly in the pocket of her traveling cloak.
    They passed a large green space. “Is that Kensington?” she asked as blithely as she could manage.
    â€œHyde Park,” was the short answer.
    She would have checked her map to make certain of it, but unfortunately her traveling cloak was still soaked through and she had kindly been lent a dry one from Lady Ashby’s closet, which was a very fine wool but sadly mapless.
    Thus, she had to be thankful she was with someone who knew London. Even if