Wickeds Scandal (The Wickeds) Read Free

knowing a pin restraining her hair had given out.  An unruly
curl, delighted with its freedom, spiraled down her back.  Another ringlet
sprang free accompanied by another ping.  
    “Damnation!” 
She squinted in the dim light. One runaway pin twinkled on the floor and she
grabbed it.  Now where was the other?  She looked up and spied a
slice of light farther down the corridor with something glinting in it. 
She moved to collect her other pin and came to a dark paneled door, standing
slightly ajar.   The crackle of a warm fire greeted her ears. 
She rubbed her shoulders, chilled from the cooler air of the hallway.  
Alexandra looked down the hall.  Surely no one would mind if she popped
into the room and warmed up before returning to the ballroom. Curious, she
snuck a peek into the room and gasped in pure pleasure.  A library. 
A beautiful, lovely, library!
    She clasped
her hands with joy, inhaling the musty smell of paper and ink mixed with
leather.  Books!  Wonderful, wonderful books!  Obviously, Lord
Dobson had to be a great reader, for certainly it couldn’t be Lady
Dobson.  That earnest lady lectured Alexandra on the evils of young ladies
being too well read from the moment Alexandra first met Lady Dobson.  Alexandra
moved forward, the hair pins clutched in her hand as she spied the large walnut
bookcases lining the room. 
    Wandering
over to the far wall, she ran her finger over the spines of fine Moroccan
leather.  Titles jumped out at her, books on history, geology, and
science.  Her hand hovered over a large book on farming.  Fingers
shaking, she pulled her hand down.
    Two weeks
ago the thought of her uncle even remembering she existed, let alone deciding
to marry her off, would have been absurd.  As she lay dying, Aunt Eloise assured
Alexandra that Helmsby Abbey would belong to her when she reached her
twenty-fifth birthday.  Oliver Burke would have no claim to the estate or
Alexandra’s small inheritance.  Her birthday, two months away, would free
her.  She was positive Odious Oliver was oblivious to this fact.  The
family solicitor, Mr. Meechum, would assist her in getting away from her
uncle.  She sent a missive to Meechum & Sons just this morning
urgently requesting the solicitor’s help.
    “Bloody
hell!”  Alexandra whispered to the quiet room.  It felt good to use
such foul language. The current circumstances warranted it.  Her much
unloved uncle needed money and the only things left to sell were Helmsby Abbey
and Alexandra.  
    A chilling
embrace wrapped around the smooth bare flesh of her arms.   The
possibility of what would happen to the people of Helmsby Abbey, should Oliver
sell it, filled Alexandra with dread.  Too elderly to find other
positions, Mrs. Cowries, Jameson and Cook would have no where to go should
Oliver turn them out.  They depended on Alexandra.   Uncle
Oliver dangled the fates of all she loved in this world over her
head.   She felt very much like a rabbit caught in a hunter’s
snare.  How in the world would she escape without chewing a limb off?
    Footsteps,
firm and measured, sounded in the hallway.  She heard the sound of a man’s
laughing baritone as a dark shape hovered outside the library door.
    Alexandra
frantically searched for a place to hide herself.  Large damask curtains
hung from the windows and she slid behind the dense folds.  She shook the
curtain, making sure her slippers were covered and pressed herself against the
wall.  Alexandra held her breath, afraid to stir the curtain as the man
moved into the room.
    “Are you
hiding from me, Lord Reynolds?”  A woman’s husky voice sounded in the
hallway.  “Making me give chase, you wicked, wicked man.”

TWO
     
    Alexandra
stood very still behind the curtain.  Lord Reynolds?  Satan
Reynolds?
    She heard
the click of the library door as it shut.
    “Hello,
darling! What a boring party!  Lady Halston nearly put me to sleep with
her gossip.  She finds you quite