The Second Lady Southvale Read Free Page B

lips. ‘I’m not concerned about other women, just about you. Look at me.’
    Slowly she obeyed, and was conscious of a powerful current that seemed to almost leap between their eyes.
    ‘Are you going to marry George Whitby?’ he asked quietly, holding her gaze.
    ‘I don’t know….’ Nothing was certain anymore. What had been clear at the commencement of the evening was all in question now. How could she marry George now that she’d experienced such soaring emotion from just being with this Englishman? The feelings she’d had for George were as nothing when set beside the shivering delight of merely receiving one of Philip de Grey’s devastating smiles.
    ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’ he pressed.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But you haven’t accepted?’
    ‘No.’
    His hand moved over hers again, but not fleetingly this time. The caress destroyed her resistance, and her gloved fingers involuntarily curled to meet his. She felt the hardness of his signet ring as he held her hand tightly, but then she remembered everyone else on the terrace and hurriedly drew away.
    ‘No, we mustn’t….’
    ‘It’s too late now, Rosalind, for I’ve seen into your heart,’ he said softly.
    She swallowed, her tongue passing nervously over her lower lip. ‘But we hardly know each other, Lord Southvale.’
    ‘I know all I need to about you.’
    ‘But I know very little about you.’
    ‘That’s easily corrected. Meet me tomorrow.’
    ‘I can’t do that,’ she gasped. This was all happening far too quickly, and she felt as if all control was being taken from her.
    ‘Why not?’ His tone was softly persuasive and his eyes teased her to defy her heart.
    ‘Why not? Because it isn’t done for a lady to make assignations with a gentleman she’s only just been introduced to.’
    ‘Nor is it done for said lady to clasp said gentleman’s hand so intimately, or to let him see in her eyes that she desires him as much as he desires her.’
    Her breath caught, and confusion beset her. ‘Please, stop….’ she whispered.
    ‘Stop? And see the prize slip from my fingers? No, Rosalind, I don’t intend to let that happen. I want you more than anything else in this world, and time isn’t on my side if I wish to win you.’
    ‘Time?’ She could barely collect her scattered thoughts. She could hear his voice, but her own heartbeats threatened to drown his words.
    ‘I may not be in Washington for very long. My task here is to be the messenger boy, should there be any significant developments in the talks between the British envoy and the American government. I’m due to go to St Petersburg at the beginning of next year, and was only sent here at the last minute because the diplomat who was to have come was hurt in a riding accident. If I’m sent back to London because of the talks, someone else will return to Washington in my place, and I am still going to Russia in the new year. It’s because time may be very short that I’ve pressed you so tonight, for if I’d allowed convention to take its course, I could have found myself on my way home to London without progressing beyond a formal introduction.’ Shaking his head a little, he gave a short, rather incredulous laugh. ‘Dear God, I’d never have dreamed it possible to havebeen so struck by lightning that I’d behave like this.’
    ‘That’s how I feel too,’ she said quietly, for it was true.
    ‘Then you know we have to meet again?’
    ‘Yes.’ What point was there in pretending otherwise? She wanted to see him, to be with him….
    ‘Tomorrow?’
    She nodded.
    ‘Or should I say today, for I believe it’s now the Fifth of July.’
    She smiled. ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘John told me that you and he often ride in the woods east of here.’
    ‘Yes, we do.’
    ‘He mentioned a fallen tree on a hill, from where there’s a particularly spectacular view.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’ll be there at midday.’
    ‘I’ll come to you,’ she whispered.
    ‘And now I think perhaps