Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride by Elizabeth Rolls Page B

her dinner off the mantelpiece. She could almost hear the creaking protest of overused muscles with every movement. As for the stairs, they were a penance.
    ‘My lord.’
    He was frowning at her. ‘That is one of Lady Braybrook’s gowns.’
    She felt heat steal over her cheeks. No doubt he thought she was dressing above her station in this soft grey silk. Her skin flickered at his intent stare. She twitched the heavy embroidered shawl Lady Braybrook had given her, drawing it a little closer across her bodice.
    ‘Her ladyship wished me to wear it.’ Her ladyship had more than wished. She had ordered. On pain of being sent back upstairs to change, should Christy dare to rebel and appear in one of her old gowns? How could she refuse? She couldn’t remember when she had last talked, really talked, with another woman apart from her mother and Sukey. It was frighteningly easy to believe, to pretend, that she belonged here.
    Her last employer had considered her as more of an errand girl, only addressing her when she required something. Lady Braybrook’s notion of a companion was far more…well… companionable than Mrs March’s had been. It touched a chord inside her, an unacknowledged yearning that had been better left sleeping.
    ‘And you obliged her.’
    There was something odd about his voice, but she forced herself to respond calmly. ‘As you see, my lord.’
    Her tone was even, quite indifferent. Which, given that her lungs had apparently lost their capacity, was remarkable. There was nothing, she told herself, nothing about Lord Braybrook to make her breathing hitch.
    She had seen handsome men before. Men with blue eyes. Well-dressed men. There was no reason in the world for her waist, hands and—her stomach fluttered—legs to remember how carefully he had settled her in the saddle. There had been nothing intimate about it.
    ‘And the cap, Miss Daventry—’
    ‘Is my own,’ she informed him stiffly.
    He didn’t doubt it. Not for one moment. Serena wouldn’t have been seen dead in the monstrosity. And not a scrap of hair was to be seen. For which he ought to thank every god in the pantheon. Three ruined cravats on the floor of his bedchamber were testament to his distraction over whether or not Miss Daventry’s hair could possibly be as silken as it looked.
    Clearing his throat, he gestured for her to precede him into the drawing room. And averted his gaze from the lure of her slight figure. Voluptuous , he reminded himself. He preferred voluptuous. Ripe, seductive, womanly curves. It would help enormously if he remembered that, rather than the supple curve of Miss Daventry’s waist.
    To his relief Serena, Lissy and Matthew were already down. Finding himself alone with Miss Daventry…His cravat tightened in the most unaccountable way, and he wondered what excuse he might have used for abandoning her.
    ‘Ah. There you both are.’ Serena smiled. Then frowned. Direfully.
    Julian blinked. And glanced down to check that he hadn’t forgotten some vital item of attire. Like his trousers.
    ‘No, dear. Not a cap. Not with that gown.’
    He choked back a laugh, and risked a sideways glance to see how Miss Daventry was taking this admonition.
    Meekly. Not a flicker of rebellion. For some reason that irked him. She’d bristled like an angry cat when he mentioned it.
    ‘Julian, for heaven’s sake, remove it!’
    Remove it—? Remove Miss Daventry’s cap? His fingers itched.
    Playing for time, he said, ‘Remove what, Serena?’
    ‘Miss Daventry’s cap!’ said Serena in pained tones. ‘Now, Julian!’
    Rebellion sparked then all right and tight. Miss Daventry clutched at the cap…just a split second after Julian’s instinctive response to an order that would have made a troop sergeant jump.
    The cap dangled in his hand, and Miss Daventry stared up at him in disbelief, minus the remnants of her dowdy disguise.
    ‘Much better!’ declared Serena.
    Part of Julian’s brain agreed. The witless part that took