Flirting with Ruin Read Free Page B

of her reputation. Though she had left the inn with him boldly enough. Fraser was torn. She was right to go. It was madness for him even to consider asking her to stay, pure folly to contemplate finishing what they had started, but he hadn’t wanted anything for so long that was exactly what he was contemplating. Even though the last thing he wanted was any sort of entanglement. Except that when he looked at her, he could think of nothing but entanglement. He ran his hand through his dishevelled hair. ‘You will not be insulted if I tell you that I wish it could be otherwise.’
    ‘On the contrary, I would be insulted if you wished it so,’ she replied with a hint of a smile.
    He couldn’t help but laugh at that. ‘Aye, well, that is some consolation.’ A cloud scudded over the moon, and Fraser’s laughter faded. ‘You know, I am not the sort of man who usually takes advantage. I doubt you’ll believe me, but I was on the point of retiring when you walked in tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking—I wasn’t thinking—but I do, you know. Usually.’
    ‘So too do I. Usually. Despite my reputation for doing otherwise.’
    Her voice had changed, there was a sharpness to it now he did not like. Irony. Sarcasm. Bitterness. He caught her hand as she turned from him. ‘What were you escaping from tonight?’
    He thought she wouldn’t answer him, and then she did. ‘Myself. And you?’
    ‘The same. Rosalind…’
    But she had slipped her hand free again. ‘Goodbye, Just Fraser,’ she called, and began to walk quickly down the path that led through the woods. He took an instinctive step towards her and then stopped. What was the point? Already she was but a shadow. He watched her until she disappeared, then turned back towards the village. Picking his way past a slumbering farmer slumped in a hard chair in the hallway of the Rothermere Arms, Fraser was already beginning to wonder if he’d dreamed the whole encounter.
    * * *
    Rosalind and Kate had the huge dining room at Castonbury Park to themselves. Kate’s father, the Duke of Rothermere, took his breakfast gruel in his rooms. Mrs Landes-Fraser, the duke’s dead wife’s sister who had moved to the great house to take charge of her two nieces upon their mother’s death, took tea and bread and butter in her bedchamber. Phaedra, Kate’s sister, had piled a plate high from the covered dishes that lined the sideboard, devoured it in a few minutes and fled to the stables where she spent most of her time.
    ‘It seems such a waste,’ Rosalind said, indicating the virtually untouched platters of kidney, eggs and sausages from which only Phaedra had partaken.
    ‘I expect the servants eat most of it,’ Kate replied, buttering a bread roll. ‘I have tried to suggest that it’s unnecessary, but despite the fact that my father has more or less taken up residence in his rooms since we had the news about—about Edward—he insists that everyone else carries on as normal. Though, to be honest, since we’ve been pretty much an all-female household for some time, with all my brothers and my cousin Ross away, I think it has been some considerable time since we have done anything like justice to breakfast.’ Kate poured herself a second cup of coffee. ‘Never mind that—tell me, did you enjoy yourself last night?’
    Rosalind took a sip of coffee, debating the various replies to this question. Having lain awake most of the night reliving the evening, she was no closer to understanding her behaviour. Across the table, Kate was looking at her quizzically. No point in prevaricating, Kate would see right through her with those too-perceptive blue-grey eyes of hers. ‘I think so,’ she said cautiously.
    ‘You think so? How intriguing.’ Kate leaned her chin on her hands, placing her elbows on the table in a way that would have had her aunt clucking in horror. ‘I scent a scandal, do tell.’
    Rosalind laughed. ‘I am the wanton widow, of course there is a