The Ruin Of A Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page B

care.”
    “Although Lord Windermere is abroad, he may still hear gossip.”
    “I hope so,” Cynthia replied with a brittle laugh. “I know quite well that Denford is using me as part of a scheme to embarrass Windermere and I intend to use him for the same reason.”
    “I wish you would be careful.” What more could she say? Cynthia was both her hostess and her senior. It wasn’t Anne’s place to read her a lecture.
    “I think the pot calls the kettle black, Miss Annabella. Admit that you have a tendre for the wicked Lord Lithgow. I knew it as soon as you mentioned new gowns.”
    Anne made a play of shuffling the pages of the letter. “I don’t think so. I find him agreeable company. Very easy to talk to. And he is a man of substance too.”
    “You find any man substantial who will talk about Roman ruins.”
    Anne smiled at Cynthia’s teasing and as usual said less than she felt. There was something about Lithgow’s company that added a pleasant frisson of danger. When she tried to analyze it she could only suppose it was due to his somewhat unsavory background. Yet even when he’d embraced her to save her from the runaway cart she hadn’t felt he was taking advantage. She felt safe in his presence, safe from the pressure of courtship. He never lavished her with the overblown praise that she loathed in her suitors. Aside from that one time when, ridiculously, he’d called her elegant, he was friendly and sincere. Perhaps he meant it. Perhaps he did find her elegant.
    If so, he’d find her even more so if she were more fashionably dressed.
    “What else does Caro have to say?”
    Anne turned over the page. “She wants us both to come to Castleton for Christmas.”
    “We could do that, I suppose.” Anne feared Cynthia’s lack of enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that Denford was unlikely to be invited.
    “She writes a lot about Castleton’s twin sisters.”
    “I know she’s happy to have sisters. I’ve always wished I had them myself.”
    “She is like a sister to me.” Though they hadn’t spent much time together, she and Caro had always been each other’s dearest friends. While she shouldn’t resent her cousin’s happiness, she felt a certain abandonment. The prospect of achieving a warm family life with a suitor of her guardian’s choosing seemed remote. A sliver of jealousy, selfish and irrational, chilled her heart. Ashamed, she shook her head, returned to the letter, and gasped.
    “What?”
    “Speaking of Lord Lithgow, listen to what Caro writes. While I am on the subject of my old friends —underlined for emphasis— I want to counsel you to beware if you come across Marcus Lithgow. I cannot tell you what happened between us without breaking Thomas’s confidence and revealing secrets about his family, but I am quite disillusioned with him. Marcus has behaved very badly to me and Castleton, who dislikes him very much. Do not trust a word he says. Underlined again. I wish I could tell you everything but it is not my secret. ”
    “Goodness! How very dramatic!”
    “Caro has always enjoyed a drama,” Anne said, a little sourly.
    “What can he have done?”
    “No doubt he did something to annoy Castleton, which wouldn’t be difficult. Since they left London every letter is ‘Thomas did this,’ ‘Thomas says that.’ Evidently he’s managed to turn her against her old friends.”
    “You must be right,” Cynthia said. “I still don’t understand how Caro can be happy with Lord Stuffy. They are so different.” This was an old and oft-repeated conversation. Neither of them quite fathomed their lively friend’s attachment to the poker-backed duke. And they both missed her.
    “Another thing. Lithgow hasn’t made the least effort to charm me. I’ve had what feels like every man in London making up to me and he doesn’t behave like any of them.”
    “Still,” Cynthia said, “there must be something there to make her write like that.”
    It was ironic, Anne thought, that