Madcap Miss by Claudy Conn Read Free Book Online Page A

made me think so?”
    She blushed furiously and said nothing to this, and he said softly, “Come, then, we shall call a truce and enjoy some honest conversation while we await your meal and my brandy, Miss … ah, is it like Scott’s—Hanover?”
    “Oh?” she asked. “Are you not hungry?”
    “I have just only come from dinner, but I will join you with some cheese and brandy. Now, if you would be so kind as to answer my question, is your surname … like Scott … Hanover?”
    “If we are brother and sister why would it not be?” she offered—without lying, she told herself.
    “If you were brother and sister, but had different fathers …?” he offered, his eyes silver and bright.
    “Oh, yes, I did not think of that,” she answered innocently. “Well, you may call me Felicia.”
    A serving girl appeared at that moment, her mop cap askew over her light brown hair. She smiled at them, plopped a basket on the table, and announced, “Here are some rolls … fresh they are, right from the oven. Don’t they do smell nice.”
    He thanked her, and off she went.
    “Felicia?” her savior asked, and she saw curiosity in his eyes as she took a roll, dipped it in the soft butter, and stuffed her mouth with a groan.
    She nodded.
    He said, “I fancy I heard Scott call you something else?”
    She smiled. “Yes, he has always called me Flip, ever since we first … ah, since we were very little.”
    “And do you prefer that to Felicia?”
    “Scott is the only one who has ever called me that, but I like my name,” she answered. Then she tore off another piece of the roll, dipped it in the butter, and moaned once more as she chewed.
    “Right then, after you swallow, I think you might want to tell me what sent you and Scott off into the night without so much as one portmanteau between you? Are you two in some kind of trouble?”
    She was stunned. She knew he knew that things weren’t what they seemed. He was a ‘knowing one’ Scott would say. He had an air of sophistication and experience about him, but she had not expected him to ask so soon and so openly.
    She nearly choked and did, in fact, cough. She settled herself, and as she felt the heat rise to her entire face she tried on an answer. “We were on our way to London … to Sc—our aunt’s place.” She eyed him and tried to change the subject. “These are delicious. Do have one.”
    He ignored this and apparently was going to go for the throat, because he eyed her doubtfully and asked, “On your way to London? In the dead of night? Why?”
    She sighed and answered honestly, because she could not think of anything else, “We had no choice.” She just couldn’t snub him by not answering. He had stopped and helped her with Scott. Without his help, she didn’t know what she would have done.
    Besides that, there was something about him that drew on her and not beat, but gently stroked, her natural independence into sweet submission. Ludicrous that such a notion should pop into her head, but it had.
    He said, “No choice? But, my dear, why is that?”
    She dimpled at him and went kitten-like into her large, comfortably upholstered chair, tucking her legs beneath her. “Shall I trust you, sir?”
    His gaze almost made her swoon. She felt safe and coddled with the look he gave her. It was a glance that said she could trust him with her life. But he was a stranger. She should be careful.
    He said, “You don’t wish to be thought of as a child, yet here you are, an enchanting ragamuffin, asking a total stranger if you should trust him. In my case, yes, so I hope you have an instinct for such things.”
    She laughed. “Well, I have never been lectured for wanting to be honest before.” Were her instincts on the mark ? Could she trust him ?
    She shouldn’t. He was a stranger—and quite devilishly attractive.
    * * *
    Imperceptibly he looked her over, and noted that her long black hair framed a face that was exquisite. Her eyes, lush in their color