A Dangerous Beauty Read Free

far and as fast as possible—to lick her wounds in private.
    Henry—Lord Sumner to her forevermore—was in love with someone else. He thought her a mere child to be amused. She would never, ever be so embarrassed again in her entire life.
    Or so she thought.
    She rode along the cliff paths from the edges of the duke’s property toward her beloved Edgecumbe feeling sorry for herself and then thoroughly disgusted by her self-pity.
    For goodness sake, hadn’t she watched her handsome brothers make complete fools of themselves over this jumped-up notion of love? It was supposed to be a strong, mutually held sentiment that made one a better person, not a blithering idiot, when it knocked on one’s heart. But surely, her feelings were much stronger than her silly brothers’ sensibilities. Surely, she hadn’t made such a cake of herself.
    In her heart, she knew she had.
    She had been more foolish than the lot of them.
    She could only take comfort in knowing that she would at least be able to play the wise older sisterwhen Sylvia came to cry on her shoulder with natterings of love.
    The fields were at their most bountiful, the harvest process just begun. Rosamunde crossed into her father’s lands many hours after leaving the scene of her disappointment. She turned the stallion over to the stable master, who was deep into the long process of polishing the crested family carriage.
    “Why, Lady Rosamunde, you’ve missed all the goings-on. Your father’s returned from town. And the visiting bishop and the two Miss Smithams came to call.”
    Rosamunde shuddered and prayed she wouldn’t have to face the three biggest gossips in all of St. Ives, Penzance and Land’s End combined.
    Jones must have seen her expression. “Don’t worry, miss, they’ve gone now. Back to their ministerin’.” He coughed and she could swear she heard him mutter, “or tittle-tattlin’ if you were to ask.”
    Rosamunde admired the stable master’s handiwork on the carriage and beat a hasty retreat to the back entrance of her family home. Within a trice she was in front of her washstand, the tepid water soothing away the traces of tears on her dusty cheeks. She glanced at the looking glass and saw what appeared to be the loneliest, plainest girl in the world. It was not often that her desire for a mother overwhelmed her, but this was one of those times. She fingered her mourning locket engraved with a rose. She always wore it. Beneath the gold oval and a thin glass lay a lock of her mother’s flaxen hair intricately woven with her ownblack strands. Glancing at the miniature of her mother near the washstand, Rosamunde shook her head. She looked nothing like her.
    She knew she must speak to her father. He was the only one who understood her, and would know what she should do to stop making such a fool of herself. Maybe he would suggest a grand tour or her first trip to London. Then she would be able to store away this ridiculous obsession and return to some semblance of normalcy. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about losing her heart again. It was lost somewhere on Perran Sands.
    The sounds of clinking harnesses and carriage wheels on pea gravel drifted in from the window. Curiosity got the better of her and she adopted the pose every female knows from birth, falling into the shadows to peek through the curtains.
    The Helston bronze-and-silver crest were emblazoned on the doors of a black town carriage with a Salisbury boot. No less than four outriders flanked the elegant carriage, the riders’ dark purple livery and tall powdered wigs bespoke of elegance wasted this far south of London. They must be deadly hot inside. Why hadn’t they taken an open landau instead of this boxed-up funereal equipage?
    A small, hard ball of ill ease formed in Rosamunde’s stomach. What was going on? The duke’s family had never condescended to visit before. Her father had even joked that apparently an earl wasn’t high enough in the instep for the Helston