Read Online Annie Burrows by Reforming the Viscount - Free Book Online

house, then, or she would have clapped him in matrimonial irons so fast he wouldn’t have known what hit him. And he would have been stuck with her and all her... encumbrances. If he was being this determined to let her know he regretted having almost proposed to her, then it was a good job she hadn’t taken him seriously.
    Not for the first time, she thanked God Colonel Morgan had seen fit to marry her. He had never, ever looked upon her as an encumbrance. Oh, Rose might have said he made her work hard for her keep, but at least he made her feel as though she could play a valuable role within his household.
    Lord Rothersthorpe had done himself no favours with Rose, either, to judge from the way she was looking at him as though she had never seen him before. The way she had felt last night, when she’d first begun to suspect she had been mistaken about his nature. Rose might be a little outspoken, but she was also a tender-hearted girl. She was bound to recoil from a man who could speak so callously of people who had some form of disadvantage.
    Thank heaven Rose had spotted that in him now. She would not waste years pining for a man who turned out not to have been worth a single one of the tears she’d shed over him.
    And even though he would still be out somewhere looking for a suitable wife, at least she wouldn’t have to watch him do it. She thought she could probably handle the news of his marriage to anyone, so long as it wasn’t Rose. It would have been extremely painful to have watched them making a life together, having children together, growing old together, when he had so neatly wriggled out of having to do any such thing with her.
    As Rose made an appropriate reply, she deliberately looked away. And it was then Lydia noticed her hands had clenched until they’d formed fists.
    Well, now she could unclench them. Rose had seen through him. Whoever Lord Rothersthorpe decided to marry, it was highly unlikely to be Rose. So she wouldn’t have to purchase Rose’s trousseau and write out invitations, and organise the wedding breakfast, all the while feeling as though she was being torn apart inside.
    Before she had much time to wonder why she still felt as though Lord Rothersthorpe’s marriage was an issue that would cause her such grief, when she’d just decided he was not worth a single one of the tears she’d shed after he’d demonstrated that she didn’t mean enough to him to give up his bachelor freedoms for, the door burst open and Robert strode in.
    ‘Thought you had better see this, Mama Lyddy,’ he said, waving a letter he was clutching in his hand. ‘Oh,’ he said, coming to a halt when he spied Rothersthorpe. ‘I thought all Rose’s admirers had left.’
    ‘All but me,’ he replied, crossing the room with his hand extended.
    Robert folded the letter swiftly before accepting his hand. ‘Have you had tea?’ Robert glanced at the detritus left behind by the pack of Rose’s younger suitors.
    ‘I do beg your pardon,’ said Lydia, aghast to discover that she’d spent the entire duration of his visit flailing around in a morass of negative emotions which had apparently robbed her of the ability to act as a competent hostess. ‘I shall ring for some more. If you are staying?’
    ‘Please do not trouble yourself now, ’ he replied sarcastically. ‘I can see your stepson has some pressing business he wishes to discuss with you.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Robert, looking rather taken aback by Lord Rothersthorpe’s rudeness. ‘Very pressing business, as a matter of fact.’
    ‘And I have still to call upon Miss Hill.’
    Of course. His other dance partner from the night before.
    She did not miss the way Rose’s lips tightened in displeasure at his announcement that this had been a mere duty call.
    Oh dear. That was two marks against him.
    So it came as no surprise when, the moment he’d left, Rose informed her that she rather thought she would as soon go to the Lutterworths’ soirée, as