What Rumours Don't Say Read Free

you planning on keeping this a secret from me?” Rosalind asked as she stormed into the library, still in her riding habit.
                Behind her, her aunt and chaperone, a plump woman in her early fifties, wobbled, gasping for breath. “Forgive me, my lord, she took off.”
                “It is quite alright, Aunt Lucille. You may leave us,” Reeve said, setting down his morning paper. He eyed his sister. “Though in the future, I would appreciate it if you did not give your chaperone a heart attack.”
                “I beg your pardon, brother, but I wanted to confirm the rumours for myself.” Rosalind took the seat across him.
                “It displeases me, Rosalind, that you pay attention to such idle talk, but by all means, let us hear what I have been keeping from you, though I recall no such promise of making you privy to all my affairs.”
                “You were seen with Miss Barton last night at Lord Elmsmoor’s ball,” Rosalind blurted out, causing Reeve to pause in the act of picking up his teacup. “In the gardens, to be precise. Alone. They said you were quite intimate, too, and…”
                “That is enough, I think,” Reeve cut her off.
                “Do you deny it?” Rosalind asked.
                Reeve simply frowned.
                “Well?”
                “Go attend to your lessons, Rosalind,” he ordered. “I need to think.”
                “But…”
                “Rosalind,” he spoke more sternly, narrowing his gaze.
                Rosalind sighed, knowing she would hear no more from her brother regarding the matter. “Alright, but you will tell me once…”
                She stopped when she saw the impatience in his eyes, and understanding, she left without another word.           
                Once alone, Reeve stood up, no longer in the mood for tea. Pacing the room had never been one of his inclinations. Rather, he preferred to look out the window and allow the scenery to help him clear his head, which was what he did now.
                You were seen with Miss Barton last night.
                He had no idea who had seen them, never having sensed the presence of another while they were in the gardens – a fact he found most unsettling, particularly since he prided himself on having acute senses from years of hunting, a sport in which he excelled. Then again, he had been distracted last night, distracted by a certain green-eyed vixen with dark brown wavy hair and a small, mouth that was perfectly upturned at the corners. Granted, she was not what one called a beauty but there was something about her that attracted, no, demanded one’s attention and held it – his, at least.
                They said you were quite intimate.
                Now, he knew where that came from. After all, whoever had seen them had probably noticed Axelle’s disheveled appearance and her flushed cheeks, both caused, no doubt, by their flight from Lord Elmsmoor’s study. 
    He could simply pay no attention to the rumours, he thought, but that would not stop them from spreading like wildfire, as experience had taught him, and he could not have that. He had promised his mother, a former paragon of virtue, and his father at his deathbed that he would never again cause even the smallest of scandals to shed a shadow on the Ravenhall name, and he fully intended to keep his word.
    As for denying the rumours, it would be an insult to the House of Cleaves and would only spur on further speculation, somewhere along the lines of him seducing Miss Barton and then discarding her, which of course, he could not have either.
    That left him with only one option.
     

 
    Two
     
     
                “Marriage?” Axelle’s gaze drifted from the Earl of Ravenhall to her uncle and back as