Surrender To A Scoundrel Read Free Page B

than lead. She could feel it throbbing all around her, and before she knew what she was about, she was breaking the silence again and asking a question rather hesitantly. “What havoc was there, exactly, after you were caught?”
    She shouldn’t have asked it, but she wanted to know if he had revealed her and Penelope’s involvement.
    Because God forbid her father should get wind of it. She was enough of a nuisance to him as it was.
    He looked at her and spoke with scorn. “I had to explain myself to the headmaster, who was unimpressed with me, to say the least, but that is nothing new. Today I am officially suspended fromschool and will be forced to go and stay with my aunt in Exeter, and every day she will remind me that I am doomed to a life of complete and utter failure.” He squinted contemptuously down the tracks. “I’ll be counting the days until the school will take me back. If they take me back.”
    “You’re not going home?” Evelyn asked. “To your brother? The duke?”
    Lord Martin gave her a snide look and shook his head. “My brother prefers to let other people put me on the straight and narrow.”
    Evelyn felt a stab of pity for him suddenly, for he appeared without support of any kind, and she had heard some rumors about his home, Wentworth Castle, being a rather dark and dismal place. But then she reminded herself that he had brought all this on himself. He made his own decisions to misbehave.
    “Maybe you need to put yourself there,” she told him flatly.
    Lord Martin grimaced, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “You are very self-righteous, aren’t you, Miss Foster?”
    “And you, sir, are very rude.” She had never been so outspoken in her life.
    He looked in the other direction, shaking his head dismissively, as if Evelyn were a complete dunderhead who knew nothing about the ways of the world.
    She squeezed her reticule. It always hurt to feelcompletely unappealing to young men, to say nothing of how it felt when the young man in question was Lord Martin. There were moments when she remembered how grateful she had been to him six years ago when he pulled her out of the freezing water and onto the ice. He had been only eleven years old, and she had thought him the greatest hero in the world. But now…
    He was hardly a hero today. He was bitter and rebellious and didn’t seem to care about anything but his own selfish and irresponsible pleasures. He had sunk very low, and it was, in a word, heartbreaking, to see the hero of her childhood dreams waste the courage and gallantry she had seen in him that day on the lake.
    He turned to her for one final word. “Don’t worry, Miss Foster, I didn’t expose you or your friend. I told the headmaster I had no idea who you were, and he seemed to believe me. He thinks he’s looking for a couple of boys.”
    Evelyn squeezed her reticule in her hands again and felt rather sheepish all of a sudden. “Well, I suppose I should thank you for that, at least.”
    He did not meet her gaze, and spoke with a cool reserve. “No need.”
    Just then, Evelyn heard her mother’s heels clicking across the platform. “We shouldn’t have to wait too much longer,” she said, then pointed down the tracks. “Oh look, here it comes now.”
    Evelyn leaned forward to see the steam trainapproaching from a distance. Martin did not look her way again. He bent and picked up his bag, then strolled in the other direction.
    A short time later, they were boarding the first-class carriages, of which there were two, thankfully. Evelyn was not surprised when Martin chose the one behind hers.
    As soon as they were seated, her mother leaned close and said, “Wasn’t that Lord Martin Langdon, the Duke of Wentworth’s brother?”
    Evelyn gazed out the window and tried to sound blasé. “Was it? I didn’t notice.”
    “You didn’t notice, Evelyn?” her mother replied. “Surely you recognized him. He saved your life once, darling.”
    Evelyn suspected her mother