What A Rogue Wants Read Free Page B

ten.”
    Already a few steps away, she looked
over her shoulder. A frown marred her beautiful face. “Goodbye,
Lord Drivel.”
    He loved that she was willing to play
the game. “Fair well, Miss Prattle.”
    He watched her depart, her hips
rocking enticingly with each step, until he could see her no more.
If he was any other sort of man, he would have followed her all the
way to her carriage just for a few more minutes in her company.
Gravenhurst nudged him in the side. “Do you really think that piece
will meet you here?”
    “ Of course I do. I’d not
have let her leave, otherwise.”

One Year Later
    Windsor Castle
    1805
     
    “ Lady Madelaine, your
stitch is off again.” Queen Charlotte jabbed her needle into her
material and set her embroidery hoop on her lap. “Hand it to
me.”
    With a quick glance at the queen’s
disapproving stare, Madelaine dismissed the idea of summoning
tears. The notion had been ridiculous anyway. After a year at Court
she knew better. The queen disliked her and no amount of crying
would ever change that.
    “ Are you defying me, Lady
Madelaine?” Polite iciness, and perhaps a tad of hopefulness,
underlay the queen’s words.
    Was she? Her fingers curled around her
wood hoop. Did she dare disobey the queen? Her heartbeat banged in
her ears. She could do it. Then she’d be ousted from Court and back
home where she actually had a friend, instead of here surrounded by
a hateful queen and equally cold ladies-in-waiting.
    Life would be grand. The fantasy
disappeared, as always. Home was no escape. The worry she saw on
her father’s face the few times he’d visited her at Court would
become worse if she was sent home. She’d rather endure the lectures
and the loneliness than further sadden him.
    The thumping in her ears lessened as
her fingers loosened and she handed her embroidery hoop to the
queen.
    “ What’s this?” the queen
demanded.
    She swallowed her pride, huge, bitter
pill that it was. “A disgrace, Your Majesty.”
    The queen’s eyebrows raised high.
“Yours, to be sure.”
    A spattering of nasty giggles erupted
around Madelaine. She should pretend not to notice, really she
should. But she just couldn’t do it. Her pride was definitely going
to be her downfall. Or perhaps her temper. It was an ongoing debate
in her head. She shot an icy glare to each lady who dared to meet
her narrowed gaze. Only three ladies out of four today? My, the
odds were improving. If she dismissed support as a requirement in a
friend she could now count Lady Elizabeth Adlard, whose gaze was
focused on her lap, as a friend. Madelaine nearly laughed. Ah,
well, at least Lady Elizabeth didn’t join in mocking
her.
    Queen Charlotte stood, her silk skirts
falling in a swish at her ankles as she did. She handed Madelaine’s
now bare embroidery hoop to her. “Redo this and then you may join
us in the library and play the pianoforte for me.”
    Madelaine gnashed her teeth. The queen
truly had it in for her today. She was worse at the pianoforte than
she was at embroidery. Yet there was a bit of hope. By the time she
redid her stitches the queen could well be tired of listening to
music and might want to go for a walk through the gardens or a
leisurely ride. Madelaine brightened considerably. She could walk
and sit with the best of them. “I’ll come to the library as soon as
I’m finished.”
    “ One hour,” the queen
commanded and exited the room with the rest of the ladies on her
heel.
    Well, all the ladies save one, but
Grace, with her venomous personality, was hardly a lady in
Madelaine’s mind.
    “ Did you forget your
pitchfork, Grace?” Madelaine had learned the hard way to strike
first. She’d been the brunt of too many of Grace’s hurtful comments
to sit and wait like a fool for Grace’s razor-sharp tongue to lash
her.
    “ Lady Grace.” Lady Grace
Frost enunciated each word like only someone who truly wasn’t a
lady would do.
    “ So you keep saying,”
Madelaine murmured, “yet