Page 30 of A Sinful Virgin for the Duke

Silently, she did as he asked and sat back as a footman cleared the table and replaced the tablecloth with a fresh one. All the while she kept her eyes down on her lap, unable to look at anyone.

She hoped they did not realize that hearing her mother’s name had been the cause of her clumsy episode.

If they did, Gemma had no idea what she would tell them.

While keeping his eyes on Miss Bradford, Frederick silently berated himself for how easily he had allowed the other side of his personality to slip to the forefront. The voice he had used on her was a voice he only used in private, away from the house, in certain clubs, with women who were part of the same type of carnal lifestyle he preferred.

Usually, it was disobedience and defiance that stirred the need to dominate that lay coiled up and waiting inside of him, but with Gemma, it was her vulnerability that had set off the domineering drumbeat in his blood.

Something had scared her… but what?

Decidedly, he moved the attention from her accident to something else. Taking the invitation, he asked, “will you be coming, Grandmother?”

“Sadly, I have a previous engagement with Lady Donahue and Dame Yardly complete with knitting needles and yards of yarn. Oh, along with gratuitous glasses of Madeira wine.”

“I see,” Frederick replied dryly. From the corner of his vision he spotted the tight line in Miss Bradford’s shoulder began to relax and hoped she was not still overly concerned about her mishap.

“At my age, one must ration one’s excitement,” Vivian replied. “I am sure you will have enough delight at the meeting for everyone here. Dear Gemma will be in the library reading and I will be knitting.”

Turning the gilt invitation over, he read out, “On behalf of Marquess and Marchioness of Treston, you are cordially invited to a gentleman’s summit to meet new investors impacting London. We begin at two-thirty in the afternoon. Guests are invited to stay the night if so desired.”

Gemma picked at her bun. “Will you…stay there, I mean?”

“Not even if a herd of rabid bulls besieged the manor house and a sudden river carved its way through its middle,” Frederick replied, while easing from the table. “I suppose I should prepare to leave. Miss Bradford, will you let me show you where the library is?”

Pink crept up her cheeks. “You needn’t do so.”

“I know,” he extended his hand.

Still hesitant, she slid her hand into his and stood, then took her leave from the Dowager. Over Miss Bradford’s shoulder, Frederick wordlessly warned his grandmother not to ask Gemma the questions he clearly saw rippling across her face.

With a nod to his grandmother, Frederick pulled his hand away as they left the breakfast room. Fortunately, the parlor was on the same level as the library, two corridors down and along a hallway filled with gold-framed portraits of Wyndham predecessors spanning back to the era of Henry the Fifth.

“One day, I might tell you who all these men are,” Frederick said, while pausing to nod to a man clad fully in black. “Especially him; they called him the Beast of Blackridge Hall.”

The man’s contorted face made her eyes widen; an expected reaction when anyone who was not related to his family saw the beastly scar that mangled half of his face.

“Oh my,” she said. “What happened there?”

“A horse, a river and moonless night,” Frederick abridged the explanation. “I will expound on it another time.”

They crossed the stretch of the hallway until they reached the library. The faint, familiar smell of leather and firewood greeted his nose as he opened the door and allowed Gemma to enter ahead of him.

It was a cavernous room which stretched to the very back of the manor and unlike the spaces he knew she had seen thus far, this one was more old-fashioned, with dark paneled walls and a massive, smoothly planed, Indian marble hearth.

The room boasted wide mullioned windows that offered an expansive view of the courtyard below, a small gazebo and a garden beautifully designed with animal statues, manicured hedges and cobblestone walking paths.

A labyrinth of bookshelves occupied most of the room. The only empty spaces consisted of a large oval in the middle of the room that held couches, a coffee table and a thick Aubusson rug. Comfortable window seats were scatted around the perimeter of the room.

Gemma walked over to the windows and rested her palms on the sill and gazed at the surroundings. She was so slight, and the cut of her simple gown accentuated her tiny waist, petite figure and eye-drawing curves. Her lustrous brown hair was knotted at the base of her skull and simple wisps trailed alongside her temples.She looked so much healthier than the pale disheveled girl he had first met in the library.

Objectively, she is as pretty as some of the lovely ladies of the ton.

Turning away from her, he padded down a row of shelves. “Did you say the book you left behind wasA Thousand and One Nights?”

“I did,” she came to his side and looked up, possibly spotting the familiar spine in the shelves. “Do you have a copy?”

“Actually, I have three for some reason,” his brows lowered.

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