Her Secret Fantasy by Gaelen Foley Page B

Edward were in league?
    Maybe Edward had put Derek up to it…to test her. She wouldn’t put it past her erstwhile Minotaur. He had that ruthless streak. Maybe Edward could sense that she really wasn’t quite as pure and proper as she seemed.
    Oh, God.
    She’d have walked right into a trap.
    Lily sat frozen in petrified silence, completely at a loss, while the Lundys’ servant wheeled in the tea cart with their refreshments.
    I’m dead,
she concluded, stunned. She felt paralyzed. Trapped. Strangely helpless before fate. Like one of those poor French nobles waiting in a line of wretched prisoners for his turn at the guillotine.
It’s all over now. I am disgraced.
There was nothing left to do but wait and watch it all unravel.
    She might as well have a spot of Darjeeling and try to calm down, she thought half-hysterically, though she still sat ramrod straight, masking her distress. What else could she do? Run away? What was the point, if her wanton nature had been found out?
    The scandalous truth would only follow her.
    That was why she had hidden at Balfour Manor all these years, why Grandfather had left the house to her—one safe place for her to hide the next time her world came crashing down.
    She had not expected that day to come so soon.
    For the moment, however, she could do nothing but try to recover her courage. Her heart pounded. In odd detachment, she watched Mrs. Lundy pour the tea.
    But when Lily accepted a cup and lifted it to her lips, she nearly spilled it with the trembling of her hands.

CHAPTER
              SIX          
    “M ajor,” Lundy greeted him, gravel crunching under his boots as he crossed the courtyard to receive him. “Good of you to come.”
    “I didn’t know I had a choice.” Derek slammed the carriage door behind him and took a wary glance around at the landscape and the house.
    With a hard look, Lundy nodded toward the stables. “Let’s walk.”
    They did. As they approached the barn, the sound of vicious barking filled the air.
    “Guard dog?”
    “Monster,” Lundy grunted. “Don’t worry, he’s caged. Did you have a nice visit with the chairman?” he muttered, keeping his stare fixed on the wide-open door to the stable ahead.
    Derek glanced at him in surprise. “You know about that?”
    “Of course. I’ve been ordered to befriend you.”
    “Really? Why is that?”
    Lundy sent him a dry look askance and nodded in shrewd cynicism. “Hold on. Can’t hear myself think. Maguire! Shut that dog up!” he ordered a groom as they walked into the stable.
    The young laborer blanched. “Sir, all due respect, I ain’t going near that thing.”
    “Oh, aren’t you?” Lundy boomed. “Lucky I don’t feed you to ’im. Where’s Jones, then?”
    Derek raised an eyebrow as he looked from the cowering groom to Lundy, surprised that he would accept the servant’s refusal of an order.
    “He’s gone into the carriage house. Shall I get him?”
    “Never mind. Dog only listens to me, anyway. Maguire,” Lundy added in amusement, nodding toward Derek, “show the major what Brutus did to your hand.”
    The groom shifted the pitchfork he was holding to his left hand, and then held up his right, from which most of two fingers were missing.
    Lundy sent Derek a matter-of-fact grin. “Come have a look.”
    Walking down the center aisle of the luxurious stable, Derek was secretly agog at his host’s kingly collection of horses. Whoever was choosing Lundy’s horses for him, the man knew what he was doing. There must have been two dozen of the finest warm-bloods that Derek had ever seen: Arabians, thoroughbreds, Hanoverians, Irish hunters.
    Jealousy was extremely rare in Derek’s nature, but as a cavalry man, horses were his passion, and looking around, it was depressing to see that this clod Lundy had already attained what
he
most wanted out of life. The lout probably couldn’t even ride.
    Well, I could sell my soul, too, and take a tidy office post with the