Once Tempted by Elizabeth Boyle Page B

hand at him to enter. “You’re just in time to join me.” Dressed in a ruffled morning gown, she sat on a comfortable looking sofa. Before her a silver tray with a basket of rolls and a pot of tea sat on an ornate low table.
    He smiled and walked slowly into this foreign territory. Lady Bradstone’s private sitting room, unlike the rest of the staid and elegant house, was filled with frippery. Lacy curtains and delicately carved chairs added to the dainty appeal of the room. Baskets of needlework sat awaiting attention, as did numerous books and the scattered pieces of correspondence, invitations and calling cards littering a delicate looking desk in the far corner.
    The room and its accoutrements, much like his flighty aunt, seemed destined to accomplish many things and nothing at all.
    He took the seat next to her on the yellow and white striped sofa. “Good morning, my lady.”
    “Robert, you must get over this formality you’ve brought back with you. It is very disconcerting.” She took up the teapot and poured him a cup, adding a lump of sugar and giving it an agitated stir before handing it over to him. “Now, what are you doing up at this hour and in that wretched coat? Certainly Mr. Babbit didn’t suggest this . . .  this ensemble ?”
    “Never fear,” Robert told her. “I chose it myself.”
    “Harumph,” she sputtered as she poured herself another cup of tea. “Looks more like something you borrowed from that Papist pirate you insist we keep about the house.”
    Robert suppressed a smile. Leave it to his aunt not to pass up an opportunity to cast aspersions on Aquiles. “I was out for an early stroll,” he explained. “I didn’t think Babbit’s services were all that necessary for such a minor outing.”
    His aunt’s brows rose a bit, as if to say that his valet’s services were more than necessary for every occasion. Then she sighed and reached for a roll, buttering it with the same air of despair that she had used when stirring his tea.
    Wisely Robert adhered to the one rule of spying he’d learned early on. When faced with an impossible situation, one learned more by saying nothing than by chattering mindlessly.
    So he sipped his tea in chastised silence and let his gaze wander around the room, passing over the gilt pieces and the female frippery until it landed on a small portrait hung next to his aunt’s secretary.
    “Mother,” he whispered, before even realizing he’d spoken.
    “Yes?” Lady Bradstone answered. “What is it, my dear?”
    He shook his head and turned to her. “Um, oh, nothing.” But against his own volition, his gaze turned back to the sight of the face he hadn’t seen in years, not since his childhood.
    Her ladyship rose from her chair, followed his line of sight and pulled the small painting from the wall. “My sister, Susannah.”
    “She was lovely,” he managed to say, as his aunt returned to the sofa and handed him the portrait.
    “Yes, Susannah was the real beauty of our family. Though I had my own legions of beaux, my sister claimed the heart of every man in the ton.” His aunt sighed. “I miss her ever so much. More each year. Why, she’s been gone, for . . .  oh, bother, too many years to count.”
    Twenty-two years, Robert thought. And he’d counted every single one since he’d been four years old and his father had come into the room he shared with his older brother Colin early one morning to tell them their mother was gone. That the fever that had kept her in bed for most of the week had taken her life.
    “Oh, aren’t we a melancholy pair,” his aunt said, bubbling once again. “Susannah would never have stood for anyone weeping over her portrait. She loved life too much. ’Twas her folly, I suppose.”
    “Why do you say that?” he asked, suddenly curious about the woman of whom he held only a few cherished and blurred memories.
    “She could have had her pick of husbands. Father quite indulged her in the matter. But then again