Anne Barbour by Step in Time Read Free Book Online Page B

realizing this must be part of the ritual. His lips were warm against hers, his fingers firm on her shoulders. She found this intimacy oddly unnerving and was relieved when, after only a few moments, he drew back. He took her hand once again.
    “Perhaps, we should—” Ash was interrupted as Serena bustled back into the room. Her glance was questioning, but observing the proximity of the earl and her daughter on the settee, she smiled broadly.
    “Oh, my lord!” she exclaimed, pressing a hand to her plump bosom. “Is it true what Mr. Bridge just told me?”
    Amanda sensed the surge of irritation that swept over Ash at the woman’s gaucherie, but he rose smoothly and bowed.
    “Yes, Mrs. Bridge, please wish us happy.”
    “Oh, my dears!” She hastened across the room, embracing first the earl and then clasping Amanda to her like a lifeline thrown to a drowning victim. “Gracious,” she continued, sinking into a chair covered in a tapestry silk, “we shall have to start planning our ball, won’t we?”
    “Ball?” queried Amanda blankly.
    “Why, yes, to announce your betrothal. We shall invite only the best people, of course. Next month, I think—on Thursday, the sixteenth. Lady Federsham is holding her soiree that night, if I am not mistaken. We were not invited, of course, but I rather fancy that we shall see our rooms full to overflowing, for I shall put about the merest hint that those attending our function will be hearing a most interesting announcement concerning the Earl of Ashindon and our sweet Amanda.” She fell silent, a faraway expression in her faded eyes as though she were immersed in a rosy dream.
    Good Lord, thought Amanda, experiencing an urge to rush from the room, what a perfectly ghastly female. She studiously avoided the earl’s glance. The next moment she swallowed a chuckle. What earthly difference did any of it make to her? All these people were but figments of her imagination and after a good night’s sleep would be no more than an amusing memory.
    She turned to face the window. As fascinating as this whole hallucination thing had been, it was more than time to quit it. It had become surprisingly difficult during the course of the day to remember that the Bridges did not exist, nor did the Earl of Ashindon, nor even the little maid, Hutchings. She had found herself caught up in their doings. In fact, during her conversation with Ashindon in the park, she had not once thought of her real life in Chicago, which now seemed as far away as though it were on Mars. For a couple of hours she had become Amanda Bridge, and the earl had been a disturbingly real presence.
    She returned to the present with a start, realizing that Serena was still burbling on about the ball. Amanda chastised herself. How absurd she was being—as though these people had a life outside her imagination. She turned to face the group that gazed at her so expectantly. “Do I what?” she asked, realizing that Serena had repeated the same question several times, in growing exasperation.
    “Do you think we should invite Charlotte Twining and her mother? I know you and she have been bosom bows, but since your quarrel with her—”
    Amanda almost blurted. “What the hell difference does it make who you invite? What difference does any of it make? Tomorrow morning you all will be nothing but shadows echoing in the corners of my mind.” Something held her back, however, and she clamped her lips together tightly.
    “Have you forgotten, Mama?” she asked instead. “I have no memory of either Charlotte Twining or her mother.”
    Serena shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably. “Oh, that. Surely you will have recovered your senses by then.”
    Amanda almost laughed aloud. The woman spoke as though her daughter had broken out at an inconvenient moment with hives. Looking up, she encountered a glance from Lord Ashindon that contained, if she was not mistaken, a hint of pity. He looked away and addressed Serena.
    “I shall take