The Abandoned Bride by Edith Layton Read Free Book Online

to remain calm so as not to excite him the more, and that she must not call him insane or risk sending him off into a rage.
    She drew in a deep breath and then said softly, reasonably, as she backed slowly to the door, “No, my lord. I’m so very sorry, my lord, but I cannot. Indeed, I think you have the wrong opinion of me.”
    He showed strong, even, white teeth as he threw back his head to laugh harshly and she winced, despite her resolve to be collected.
    “Now how could I have gotten that opinion?” he asked, halting her backward movement by staring pointedly at her and her proximity to the door, his eyes alert and amused. “Could it be from the interviews my agent obtained? You passed seven months with the wealthy Mrs. Pomfret in Leeds, and then you were summarily dismissed because of the attentions you received from her eldest, a seventeen-year-old lad. Six months with the Honorable Miss Carstairs as companion, dismissed abruptly when Miss Carstairs noted the unseemly approval with which her noble fiancé soon came to regard you. Ah,” he went on with a theatrical air of discovery, as he took a paper from his pocket and scrutinized it, “A blameless year with old Lady Wingate in the Midlands, terminated perhaps because of her vile temper, I grant . But also per h aps because she abhor red males and there was never a susceptible one in sight? And two months, fancy that, only two months before Lord Wycliffe’s interest came to the attention of his lady. Really, Miss Hastings, you ought to have known that the lady has the eye of a hawk and the gentleman already enjoys the services of that Turner woman.
    “And now,” he went on, taking his attention from his notes, putting the pages back in his pocket, and glancing up just as Julia was about to make a lunge for the door, “leaving dear little Mrs. Bryce and her charming Toby, whom you profess to adore, in the lurch because you are homesick? Or because, truthful for once, you have told her there are no eligible males in the district? Yet, according to the townspeople, Miss Hastings, you have many admirers here. But, I will admit, no wealthy ones.
    “Oh, I have done my homework,” he sighed, noting her grimace and misconstruing her complete distress at his false interpretation of true events. “And I know your history as well. It makes for colorful reading. But you have not been as good a scholar, my dear. Did you not remember that Robin is in line for a more august title? When his father dies, he will be no less than a marquess. Now how can you think to do better? You cannot have anyone in mind with more pleasant prospects. You will come with me next week?”
    But Julia had been moving, inch by inch, quietly to the door. Now that she felt the handle firm against her spine, she drew herself up and said clearly and decisively, as she turned the handle unobtrusively behind her back, “No. I shall not. I am not what you think me, no matter what bits of paper you have amassed about me. I do not wish to ever see Robin again and I tell you that I have not even been in contact with him once since that night we parted. It is all a mistake, my lord.
    “And,” she added with relief, as she at last felt the door sway open a crack behind her, “I wish never to see you again as well. And I shall certainly not leave with you for anywhere, at any time.”
    But Julia did not have to race from the room, shrieking for help as she sought a hiding place from a violent madman as she had envisioned herself doing. The baron merely stood still for a moment and looked at her as he might look upon something found wriggling upon the earth after a rain. Then he bowed, and as she shrank back and poised to run, he simply walked past her and out the door. But he turned back to face the salon as the butler approached with his hat and driving cape. He ignored Mrs. Bryce, who came to wish him good day, and gazed only at Julia.
    “Oh, but you shall,” he said softly, as though taking a vow.