Read Online An Invitation to Sin by Jo Beverley, Sally Mackenzie, Kaitlin O'Riley, Vanessa Kelly - Free Book Online Page A
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would be?”
Taking up his meaning of “cake” as “fool,” Anna replied, “I don’t see how any gentleman of honor could be a cake, my lord.”
“Then it seems unfair that maids-of-honor be cakes, when it clearly is not so.”
“Unless it means that they take the cake, my lord,” said Anna, switching the meaning to that of victory. She was enjoying this clever wordplay immensely, but Lady Feather-stone interrupted.
“You must excuse Anna, my lord. She is bookish.”
As her mother steered her away, Anna heard him say, “I suspected it from the first.”
Anna hated letting him have the last word.
Lady Featherstone drew Anna to the far side of the room. “It is most inappropriate of you to be bandying words with the earl, Anna, and it is fatal for a girl to become known as clever. Moreover, I still fear there is something strange about that man. Going on about his supper, indeed. Keep away from him.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Anna dutifully passed the cakes around the other side of the room, but her mind was running back over that conversation. She had just been invited to a midnight tryst with the wicked earl, and promised that he would behave as a gentleman of honor, and that he held her in the highest regard.
And he’d done it in front of a room full of people!
She couldn’t help but admire a man like that.
She slid a glance over to him, and he smiled in a way that reminded her that she was a foolish, infatuated girl.
But how could a foolish, infatuated girl be expected to refuse such an invitation?
By the time she prepared for bed that night, Anna was still not sure what she would do, and she spent the next two hours pondering it.
Despite that talk of honor, logic said that it was more than likely that the earl was inviting her to a wicked encounter where he would kiss her again and try to do even more.
The alarming thing was that the idea was very attractive.
On the other hand, her instinct told her that the man she had met today had had no such intent, but some other reason for requesting a meeting. It was certainly true that there was little chance of them having a private tête-à-tête in a normal manner.
Of course, a silly little part of Anna’s mind was dreaming that he had fallen desperately in love with her during that one encounter. If that was true, then perhaps he would go on his knees and protest his undying love for her even as he declaimed his extreme unworthiness to so much as touch the hem of her gown, just like a hero in a novel by Mrs. Jamison.
“Fustian!” Anna said out loud as she struggled back into her gown, muttering about buttons that were never designed for a lady to do up by herself. In the end she put on a short spencer jacket to cover the undone buttons at the back.
The mirror assured her that she was covered neck to toe, and decidedly not the sort of apparition likely to drive a man mad with love or lust.
As the clocks in the house struck midnight, she told herself that was how she wanted it and, heart thudding, moved the bench so she could return to number 10.
The lever worked without a sound, and the door opened smoothly. She almost screamed, however, to find the earl awaiting her in the bedroom.
“Ah,” he said, investigating the doorway, “I thought it must be in here, but I couldn’t find the secret to it.”
Anna sidled away from him, shockingly aware of the intimacy of being alone with an unrelated man for only the second time in her life, and certainly for the first time in a bedroom! At least the place was still shrouded in Holland covers, which in some irrational way made it less dangerous.
“Does the room make you nervous?” he asked calmly. “Don’t be. I have no wicked intentions. But there are servants now, and to be wandering around the house would be very dangerous.”
Anna put down her unsteady candlestick, placing it beside his on a bureau. “What if the door had not been in here, my lord? Then I would have had to search the house
Taking up his meaning of “cake” as “fool,” Anna replied, “I don’t see how any gentleman of honor could be a cake, my lord.”
“Then it seems unfair that maids-of-honor be cakes, when it clearly is not so.”
“Unless it means that they take the cake, my lord,” said Anna, switching the meaning to that of victory. She was enjoying this clever wordplay immensely, but Lady Feather-stone interrupted.
“You must excuse Anna, my lord. She is bookish.”
As her mother steered her away, Anna heard him say, “I suspected it from the first.”
Anna hated letting him have the last word.
Lady Featherstone drew Anna to the far side of the room. “It is most inappropriate of you to be bandying words with the earl, Anna, and it is fatal for a girl to become known as clever. Moreover, I still fear there is something strange about that man. Going on about his supper, indeed. Keep away from him.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Anna dutifully passed the cakes around the other side of the room, but her mind was running back over that conversation. She had just been invited to a midnight tryst with the wicked earl, and promised that he would behave as a gentleman of honor, and that he held her in the highest regard.
And he’d done it in front of a room full of people!
She couldn’t help but admire a man like that.
She slid a glance over to him, and he smiled in a way that reminded her that she was a foolish, infatuated girl.
But how could a foolish, infatuated girl be expected to refuse such an invitation?
By the time she prepared for bed that night, Anna was still not sure what she would do, and she spent the next two hours pondering it.
Despite that talk of honor, logic said that it was more than likely that the earl was inviting her to a wicked encounter where he would kiss her again and try to do even more.
The alarming thing was that the idea was very attractive.
On the other hand, her instinct told her that the man she had met today had had no such intent, but some other reason for requesting a meeting. It was certainly true that there was little chance of them having a private tête-à-tête in a normal manner.
Of course, a silly little part of Anna’s mind was dreaming that he had fallen desperately in love with her during that one encounter. If that was true, then perhaps he would go on his knees and protest his undying love for her even as he declaimed his extreme unworthiness to so much as touch the hem of her gown, just like a hero in a novel by Mrs. Jamison.
“Fustian!” Anna said out loud as she struggled back into her gown, muttering about buttons that were never designed for a lady to do up by herself. In the end she put on a short spencer jacket to cover the undone buttons at the back.
The mirror assured her that she was covered neck to toe, and decidedly not the sort of apparition likely to drive a man mad with love or lust.
As the clocks in the house struck midnight, she told herself that was how she wanted it and, heart thudding, moved the bench so she could return to number 10.
The lever worked without a sound, and the door opened smoothly. She almost screamed, however, to find the earl awaiting her in the bedroom.
“Ah,” he said, investigating the doorway, “I thought it must be in here, but I couldn’t find the secret to it.”
Anna sidled away from him, shockingly aware of the intimacy of being alone with an unrelated man for only the second time in her life, and certainly for the first time in a bedroom! At least the place was still shrouded in Holland covers, which in some irrational way made it less dangerous.
“Does the room make you nervous?” he asked calmly. “Don’t be. I have no wicked intentions. But there are servants now, and to be wandering around the house would be very dangerous.”
Anna put down her unsteady candlestick, placing it beside his on a bureau. “What if the door had not been in here, my lord? Then I would have had to search the house
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