Read Online The Wedding Challenge by Candace Camp - Free Book Online Page B

rather wide above his cuffed boots. He was not wearing the usual evening attire of a gentleman—or, indeed, the clothes of any sort of man she could identify. And he seemed to have stuck his cane through the side of his belt.
    Her first thought was that he must be several sheets to the wind, and her second was that…but no, that was impossible!
    Callie came to a dead stop.
    The man continued toward her at the same steady pace, and with each stride she became more and more certain that her eyes were not playing tricks on her.
    “Lord Bromwell!” she exclaimed.
    In the next moment she wished that she had not let out the words. She should, she thought, have turned around and headed straight back for her house. He would think she was a lunatic. No, worse than that, he might assume that she was a woman of loose morals. No sister of a duke would be suspected of selling herself, of course, but she knew that the likeliest reason for her to be out at this time of night was for some sort of romantic rendezvous. In a married woman, such behavior would be scandalous, but for a girl not yet married, it would be disastrous.
    Her stomach sank at the realization that this man would probably now look upon her with contempt. And if he told anyone that he had seen her in these circumstances, her reputation would be ruined, her brother and family shadowed by the disgrace. Someone who knew her well would, she hoped, not assume that she was engaged in something reprehensible, and even if he thought poorly of her, many a gentleman would keep the story to himself in order to spare her family the shame.
    But this man scarcely knew her. And, worse, Sinclair had treated the earl in an unfriendly manner; indeed, Callie would characterize her brother’s attitude toward him as angry, even contemptuous. She hated to think how Sinclair had spoken to him after she left. Bromwell would have little reason to shield her or her brother; worse, he might gleefully seize this opportunity to get back at the duke.
    And why had her brother acted that way? Sinclair’s meddling and his cool assumption that he could tell her what to do had irritated her so much that she had not really stopped to wonder what reason he had had for being so upset that she’d been alone with this particular man. Was it Bromwell’s reputation that alarmed her brother? Had the duke warned him off because he knew that the man had a history of seducing young females?
    Her mind leapfrogged from one thought to another, each more disastrous than the last, in the instant that she stood there frozen. Her last thought, one that was purely wishful thinking, she knew, was that perhaps he had not recognized her voice and could not see her face inside the deep hood of her cloak. She could still turn and flee.
    But in the next instant such hope vanished, for he started toward her, his face registering shock. “Lady Calandra? Is that you?”
    Callie swallowed hard and squared her shoulders. She had to face this, whatever came; she must do what she could to keep the family name from being tainted by her impulsive behavior.
    “Lord Bromwell. ’Tis no wonder that you are surprised.” Her mind raced, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse for being there.
    “Indeed, at first I thought my eyes were deceiving me.” He stopped a foot away from her. “This cannot be right. You should not be out at this hour. Where is your family?”
    Callie gestured back down the street. “They are in their beds. I—I could not sleep.”
    “So you came out for a stroll?” he asked, his raised eyebrows revealing the disbelief that his polite tone did not.
    “I know you will think me very foolish,” she said.
    “Oh, no.” He smiled. “I have a sister, and I am aware of how confining the restrictions of Society are, how the rules weigh upon a young woman of spirit.”
    Callie could not help but smile back at him. Her fears had been foolish, she told herself. He seemed not at all disapproving of her actions;