Annie Burrows by Reforming the Viscount Read Free Book Online Page A

of proposing to her, before coming to his senses. He’d made it so obvious, last night, that he’d considered he’d had a lucky escape that she couldn’t bear to let anyone discover how deeply her feelings for him had run.
    ‘I really don’t even know why I kept the silly thing all these years. Or why I dragged it out to show you when we were discussing your Season. I was utterly miserable the whole time.’
    ‘Not the whole time, surely?’ Rose leant her elbow on the desk and rested her chin on her cupped palm. ‘Or you would not have spent three whole minutes staring at that arrangement of dried violets with that faraway look in your eyes.’
    ‘Three whole minutes?’ She shifted in her seat, taking care to avoid Rose’s inquisitive stare. ‘You are surely exaggerating.’
    ‘Oh, but it was.’
    ‘I was probably thinking of something quite different. A...a shopping list. Or wondering how soon we would be able to discover who are the best modistes this year. I am so out of touch.’
    ‘You are trying to hide something!’ Rose grinned impishly. ‘Were you in love with someone, before you married Papa? Did you have an admirer? Oh, how romantic! Won’t you tell me?’
    Sometimes, she did not know quite how to handle Rose. She was so perceptive it was no easy matter to fob her off.
    ‘He did not send me this posy because he wished to become my suitor. He sent it out of sympathy because I had been ill, that was all.’ Though now she wasn’t looking at everything Rothersthorpe did through blinkers, she recalled that she’d been ill several times and he’d only sent her a posy once.
    At the time, she’d been elated by the note that had accompanied it, which told her that he’d missed her at the ball she had told him she was to attend and how he hoped she would recover speedily so he could dance with her again.
    And then almost crushed by his awkwardness the next time they’d met. The way he’d attempted to brush aside the whole incident, making up some tale about a ragged flower seller and a win on the horses, and what was a fellow to do?
    And he’d looked so worried he might have raised false hopes by sending her those flowers, she’d felt obliged to reassure him.
    ‘You should take care,’ she’d said playfully, ‘not to make a habit of sending poorly young ladies flowers in that fashion, or one day one of them might get the wrong idea. And then where would you be?’
    His relief had been so palpable it had cut her to the quick.
    Had he ever done anything but hurt her?
    ‘It was ridiculously sentimental of me to preserve the entire thing,’ right down to the ribbon, she finally admitted, to herself as much as Rose. ‘But then it was the only posy I received my entire Season. From any man. For whatever reason. But I repeat, there was never any chance of anything romantic developing between us,’ she said, with just a touch of asperity creeping into her voice as she recalled his words from the night before. ‘The romantic thing was the way your father came to my rescue...’
    ‘Pooh,’ said Rose scornfully. ‘There was never a man less romantic than Papa. He treated you as though you were one of his platoon most of the time. Barking orders at you and practically expecting you to salute...’
    ‘Rose, you will not speak with such disrespect of your papa. He was a good man. A decent man. He gave me a home and—’
    ‘And made you work hard for your keep,’ Rose persisted.
    ‘He gave me a home and a family,’ Lydia continued firmly. ‘And I grew very fond of him. I know he had a bit of a temper, but you yourself know that his bark was always worse than his bite. For heaven’s sake, he’d been in the army all his life. Of course he was prone to barking orders, as you put it. It was just his way. And what is more, young lady, it was you who taught me exactly how little he truly was to be feared. I was not in your house five minutes before I saw you had him wrapped round your little