Twice Fallen Read Online Free PDF

pointout that a connection might easily be made between the broken window and her sodden reappearance at the ball. Her story of needing a breath of fresh air and getting caught in the rain would become suspect at once.
    “Of course, we have our other choice.”
    The secret passage. So now she was reduced to scrambling about in dank, hidden hallways? She wasn’t at all sure she could. When she’d told him she disliked dark enclosed places, she had been hedging. They
terrified
her for some inexplicable reason. When she’d accidentally gotten locked in an armoire during a game of hide-and-seek as a child, her screams had brought the entire household running.
    Lord Damien waited, his expression inscrutable, but then again, she thought crossly, the man had not denied being a spy. Finally, she nodded. “I suppose we have to get out somehow. The most important thing is that I am not discovered locked in here with you.”
    His smile was ironic. “How flattering.”
    “I didn’t intend to give offense.” Her voice was stiff. She couldn’t help it. “It isn’t personal. I would not want to be discovered locked in with any gentleman.”
    His gaze was searching. “So I gather.” Then he turned and limped over to the fireplace, running his hand over the wall.
    To Lillian’s amazement the panel of the hidden passage slid back without a sound under the pressure of Damien’s long fingers, though the doorway it revealed was obviously old and the hinges creaked in a screech that made her jump when he pulled it open. Hopefully no one else heard it.
    “My advice is to take off your dress.”
    She blinked at the ludicrous suggestion. “I beg your pardon?”
    Is he completely mad?
    He was already shrugging out of his jacket. “I can cover my shirt with my coat if it gets dusty, and let me assure you, it will. You could do the same. Carry your dress and put it back on when we get to the end. Your undergarments will suffer, and you might have to concoct a story for your maid, but otherwise no one will be able to tell.”
    It took a moment before she sputtered, “I… I cannot undress in front of you.”
    His smile was just a faint curve of his lips as he tugged at his perfectly tied cravat. “I assure you I will not be shocked, my lady.”
    Somehow she doubted anything shocked Damien Northfield. No doubt, with his good looks, he’d seen an undressed lady or two. She was not an ingenue any longer and understood that gentlemen were very rarely inexperienced by the time they were his age, but still, his suggestion was out of the question. “I am hardly concerned with your sensibilities. It just isn’t… proper.”
    “I think you should choose between propriety and practicality at this point.” He folded the length of his white cravat carefully inside his coat. “I can keep a secret. My Lord Wellington would attest to that. And though as lovely as you are, Lady Lillian, I promise I do not wish to ravish you among cobwebs and unlit, filthy corridors, but you are welcome to decide as you see fit. Stay here and risk discovery, or come along.”
    Did he have any idea that her gown was the least of her concerns at the moment? It was true, the door he’dopened was festooned with cobwebs, but mostly it was dark and there were stairs that led straight downward.
    Into blackness.
    Her chest tightened.
    She was, in a word,
terrified
.
    Had it not been for her tarnished past, she would have never considered it. She still wasn’t sure she
was
considering it, but at that moment someone knocked smartly on the door.
    Whatever happened, she did not want to be found locked in the library. If Lord Damien went down the passage alone, she’d still have to explain why she would ever lock the door in the first place, and though maybe later she could come up with something clever, at the moment she could think of nothing plausible. On the other hand, his solution
could
work.
    There was a second knock, louder than the first, and the handle