LITMIR.BIZ

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in the drag. Both window shutters were fully down, sparing nothing of her expression from Rosa’s steady scrutiny.

      ‘Well?’

      ‘Well, what?’ the ex-governess asked with a half-smile.

      ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me about why my gown was done up wrongly?’

      ‘If you want to tell me, I am sure you will. I am not your guardian, Bree, I am your employee.’

      Bree flushed. ‘You are my friend, and just now it feels as if you are my conscience.’

      ‘You have a perfectly good one of your own, I am certain.’ Rosa was smiling now. ‘I may not be your conscience, but I can be your confidant. Or not, as you choose.’

      ‘I very foolishly went for a stroll with Mr Latymer.’ Rosa’s smile faded. ‘He attempted to kiss me. No,’ she corrected herself, ‘he did kiss me, he was trying to force himself on me, he demanded I marry him and he threatened to ruin me so that I had no choice.’

      ‘Oh, my dear!’ Rosa reached out and took her hand. ‘I was unforgivably lax. I should have been keeping an eye out. I should have gone with you.’

      Bree shook her head. ‘I knew where you were, I just did not believe there would be a problem. I had not the slightest suspicion I could not trust him.’

      ‘But what happened? Your gown—’

      ‘That was not Mr Latymer.’ Bree gritted her teeth and pressed on—confession was supposed to be good for the soul, wasn’t it? ‘Max and his cousin Mr Harlow found us. Max hit Mr Latymer—’

      ‘Excellent!’

      ‘He knocked him down and called him out, but Mr Latymer apologised to me, very fully. He was overcome by his emotions, it seems.’ Rosa snorted. ‘Quite. But I felt I had to accept the apology, otherwise Max would have fought him.’

      ‘Oh. Disappointing, for I am sure Lord Penrith would have given him a very salutary lesson. Still, there was always the risk of scandal, or an accident, so I suppose it was best avoided.’ She frowned. ‘How long did this cowardly attack take? For him to have undone your gown …’ She hesitated. ‘But, no, you said that was not him.’

      ‘Um, no. Latymer did not do that.’ Rosa’s eyebrows soared. ‘I was feeling very shaken. I asked Max to let me recover here, in his drag. I asked him to stay and keep me company. One thing led to another.’

      ‘Indeed? How much of another?’

      ‘Not that much,’ Bree hastened to assure her. ‘More than kissing, though. Quite a lot more,’ she added in a burst of honesty.

      Rosa brooded for a moment. ‘He has made you a declaration?’

      ‘No. No, he said he will call tomorrow, that we must talk. Rosa, I am not a suitable wife for him, not in his position, and I most certainly do not want to entrap a man into marriage just because things got out of hand when he was trying to comfort me.’

      ‘Poppycock! If Lord Penrith was intending to comfort you, that’s what he would have done. He isn’t a green lad like his nephew. He knows exactly what goes on between a man and a woman, and how he is going to feel and react, and he is perfectly capable of keeping things within bounds if he wants to.’

      ‘I suppose so.’ Bree twisted the cords of her reticule until they knotted and sprang free of her fingers. ‘But he did not take advantage of me. I wanted him to make love to me, and if he had wanted to he could have seduced me utterly. And he didn’t. I am definitely still a virgin,’ she added earnestly.

      Rosa’s lips twitched. ‘I am glad to hear it. I have no wish to spend days anxiously watching the calendar!’ She pondered while Bree gazed out of the window and hoped her blushes were subsiding. ‘You know, I think Lord Penrith has sent you a very clear message. He did make love to you and yet he behaved with restraint and consideration. I think you may expect a perfectly honourable offer of marriage, my dear.’

      ‘But I cannot. That would be dreadful.’ Worse even than if he made her an improper proposal.

      ‘Why?’ Rosa demanded. ‘You have some highly eligible connections.’

      ‘When Mama remarried, James’s grandfather took him away from her and hardly allowed contact again, so shocked was he at the match. James treats us as an embarrassment he can barely trust not to disgrace him and even Lady Georgiana thinks I should aim for a younger son. She did say something the other day about Max, but I think her enthusiasm for matchmaking is getting the better of her.

      ‘And,’ Bree pursued relentlessly, as much to school her own wild fantasies as to convince Rosa, ‘we are in trade. It isn’t even as though I sit at home like so many merchants’ daughters, behaving genteelly and avoiding all contact with the business. I have been running it.’

      ‘I agree with everything you say. But Lord Penrith is a powerful man with his fair share of arrogance,’ Rosa observed. ‘I imagine that what he wants, he takes, and to hell with the consequences.’

      ‘Then I must make even more of an effort to do the right thing.’ Bree tried to find some inner tranquillity by watching the passing scene, but it could not hold her attention. ‘You know, Rosa, there is some mystery about Max. This afternoon he murmured something, just before he … just before. He said something about ten years and being free.

      ‘You don’t think he made some vow of celibacy after the incident that people whisper about? They do say his heart was broken. And at the ball he asked me what I would say if I knew he had some scandal in his life.’

      ‘A man like that, in his early thirties, will almost certainly have attracted some scandal along the way, I would have thought,’ Rosa pronounced.

      ‘James excepted.’

      ‘Yes.’ Rosa’s smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. ‘It is hard to imagine your half-brother indulging in anything reprehensible. But the remark about ten years is odd, I agree. I cannot imagine Lord Penrith remaining celibate for ten days, let alone ten years. Not with that mouth, those eyes. He is a man of very well-developed passions, I would judge.’

      ‘Rosa!’

      ‘I am not blind, am I?’ her companion enquired with dignity, which was somewhat spoilt by the twinkle in her eyes. ‘Your Max Dysart is a man of experience and I would judge his wife will be a fortunate woman.’

      ‘Not that I am likely to find out,’ Bree murmured. And whatever else he felt, he did not love her—if he did, surely he would have said so in the course of that passionate encounter?

      Chapter Seventeen

      ‘Lord Penrith, Miss Mallory.’

      Bree bit her lip and glanced down at the simple lines of her muslin morning gown. She had been determined not to dress up and look as though she was expecting a proposal from an earl; now she worried that she was insultingly underdressed.

      ‘I must go and write to my aunt,’ Rosa announced, folding the Morning Post and laying it to one side. ‘I will say good morning to his lordship on my way past.’

      ‘Don’t go!’

      Rosa sent her a look compounded of affection, exasperation and encouragement. ‘Show his lordship in, Peters.’

      ‘Yes, Miss Thorpe.’

      Her companion disappeared on the heels of the footman, leaving Bree with the sensation that she had been cast adrift.

      Rosa’s voice carried clearly from the hallway. ‘Good morning, my lord, what a pleasant day we had yesterday. I do thank you for it.’

      ‘Good morning, Miss Thorpe. It was my pleasure, and of course the Whips are indebted to Miss Mallory for arranging the coach.’

      They were chatting just outside the door while she sat there in the grip of panic, feeling as

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