NOT JUST A WALLFLOWER Read Online Free PDF Page B

perfectly acceptable as you are her closest male relative.’ She nodded briskly. ‘It is also the perfect opportunity for Ellie to see and be seen by the ton. ’
    Justin had the uncomfortable feeling that somewhere in the course of this conversation he had not only been manipulated, but soundly outmanoeuvred. An unusual occurrence, admittedly, but somehow his grandmother seemed to have succeeded in doing so. He—
    ‘There is one other subject upon which I shall require your assistance, my boy.’
    He eyed the redoubtable old lady extremely warily now. ‘Yes?’
    ‘I believe it might be advisable, before any marriage were to take place, to attempt to ascertain the identity of Ellie’s real father...’
    Justin’s eyes widened in shock. ‘Her real father? Was that not Mr Rosewood, then?’
    ‘As that gentleman had already been dead for a full year before Ellie was born, I do not believe so, no...’ Edith grimaced.
    This situation, one not even of Justin’s own choosing, suddenly became more and more surreal. ‘And is Eleanor herself aware of that fact?’
    His grandmother gave a snort. ‘Of course she is not. I only discovered the truth of things myself when I had her mother investigated after that idiot Frederick ran off to Gretna Green so impetuously and married the woman.’
    ‘So my stepcousin and ward is not only penniless, but is also a bastard—’
    ‘Royston!’
    Justin groaned out loud. ‘And if I should discover that her real father is an unsavoury scoundrel fit only for the gutter?’
    His grandmother raised imperious brows. ‘Then you will do everything in your power to make sure that no one else is ever made privy to that information.’
    ‘And how do you suggest I do that?’
    ‘I have every confidence that you will find a way, Royston.’ She smiled.
    A confidence in his abilities which, in this particular instance, Justin did not share...
    * * *
    Ellie could not settle as she waited nervously for Justin to join her in the library. Even the warmth from the fire beside which she now sat, lit by Stanhope some minutes ago when he delivered the tray on which sat the two glasses and brandy decanter, did little to ease the chill of nervousness from her bones.
    She had been in the dowager duchess’s household for a year now and before this evening could have counted the number of words she had exchanged with the top-lofty Duke of Royston on the fingers of one hand. Nor had he ever deigned to address her by her given name until this evening.
    Which was not to say Ellie had not been completely aware of him, or that his full name was Justin George Robert St Just, the twelfth Duke of Royston—and a long list of other titles which escaped Ellie’s memory for the moment. Aged nine years her senior, and so obviously experienced as well as worldly, the golden-haired, blue-eyed Justin St Just had also featured largely in every one of Ellie’s romantic dreams, both day and night this past year, to a degree that she believed herself half in love with him already.
    Which made awaiting his appearance in the library now even more excruciatingly nerve-racking. How embarrassing if she were to reveal, by look, word or deed, even an inkling of the sensual fantasies she had woven so romantically about the powerful and handsome duke! Fantasies that made Ellie’s cheeks burn just to think of them as she imagined Justin returning her feelings for him, resulting in those chiselled lips claiming her own, those long and elegant hands caressing her back, before moving higher, to cup the fullness of her eagerly straining breasts—
    ‘Your thoughts appear to please you, Cousin Eleanor...?’
    Ellie gave a guilty start as she rose hastily from the chair beside the fireplace to turn and face the man whose lips and hands she had just been imagining touching her with such intimacy.
    Justin did not at all care for the look of apprehension which appeared upon Eleanor Rosewood’s delicately blushing face as she rose to gaze