Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) Read Free Page B

defiance filled her as the remembered humiliation swept through her body.
    “Errr…”
    “I’m blind without them! Have you ever tried dancing a waltz without knowing where you are going because you are too blind to see, whilst some large angry handsome man mutters disparaging comments about Machiavellian debutantes in their ears?”
    “Handsome?  Ahem. Are you sure you weren’t plotting ways to kill me?”
    Melissa huffed. “If I wasn’t then I am now!”
    “So how do you do it? How do you kill all of those men? Tell me!”
    “What men? What? I am not the Viper!”
    A cough at the door silenced her. Melissa shut her mouth with a snap. Some of the bravado that had carried her through before left her suddenly and her shoulders slumped. The butler that had carried her into the house coughed again.
    “Sir, Lord Granwich is here to see you. I’ve put him in the morning room.”
    Above the rims of her shattered spectacles, Melissa could just see the earl’s arms lift in the air in seeming frustration.
    “Bring him in.”
      “What shall I do with the Viper, sir?”
    “I am not…” Even to her ears her voice sounded feeble.
    “Take her down to the kitchen and let Carlos and Charles guard her. I don’t want Granwich to see her just yet. I want it to be a surprise for him.”
    “Goodness what a lovely surprise,” Melissa muttered. “Here what are you doing?” The black hood that had been hung over her face before, was quickly hooked over her head again. “I…” With little ceremony her body was picked up and carried out of the room. Although the hands gripped her firmly and impersonally underneath her knees and shoulders, Melissa still couldn’t stop the tightness that held her body rigid away from the butler’s torso.
    Carter’s feet echoed down a passageway and clumped rhythmically down a small flight of stairs into what must have been the kitchen. Delicious smells of food wafted through the thin fabric of her hood as she bit her lip.
    She hadn’t eaten since the large cooked breakfast Mrs. Hobbs had prepared that morning. Mr. Hobbs had been out tending the garden. It had been the least she could do since he had lost his job. Quite when she had ended up employing them both full time was a mystery. It could have been on the day that she had had so many customers queuing at the garden gate for cures that she had had to ask the pair to work for her on a more permanent basis. Or when one night the ghosts of Melissa’s past, living and dead, seemed to walk endlessly through the house as she shivered in her room upstairs in the empty attic.
    For despite putting the house on the market, no one had seemingly wanted it even though other houses in the street sold for more. And although she had thought that she would disappear, without the money from the house she couldn’t. She had fallen back into her old routines, growing her flowers and herbs, pressing them, distilling their essences and then attempting to shorten the ever present queue of people behind the garden wall. Helping those that couldn’t help themselves gave her back a small semblance of comfort that balanced against the lonely nights of fear and memories.
    Her stomach rumbled alarmingly as she was set carefully down in a chair. Oh gods , what a time to happen.
    “Do you think we should take the hood off?”
    Melissa sat up straighter as a shadow crossed her vision.
    Carter’s voice came from behind her. “Um, the earl says that she’s very dangerous.”
    “Oooh.” A third voice joined the conversation. “Then we definitely should take the hood off to see who we are dealing with.”
    Slowly, the black stifling hood rose, brushing against Melissa’s cheeks. Instantly the shattered glass of her spectacles steamed up.
    “Gosh!” the first voice said. “She even has the power to create mist!”
    Melissa coughed. She couldn’t help it, the terrified giggle burst forth as she clasped her bound hands into her skirts.
    Behind her,