Free An Invitation to Sin by Jo Beverley, Sally Mackenzie, Kaitlin O'Riley, Vanessa Kelly

be.”
    “Why?”
    “You are not a particularly biddable girl, are you? Because, Miss Featherstone, I am still suspected of having murdered Lady Delabury, largely because no one ever believed that she could have gained entry to this house in her very revealing nightgown—for, unlike you, she favored diaphanous silk—without me knowing. Since my friends vouched for me, this casts a shadow on their honor, too. I want the matter cleared up.”
    “After all these years? And …”
    “Yes?”
    Anna looked down. “I feel horribly selfish, but how can you tell the world about the door without involving me?”
    She looked up to see him smile quite gently. “I’ll find a way. You must trust me.”
    And she did. Yet again, relief was tinged with a little disappointment. She trusted him with her reputation, but she feared she could also trust him with her virtue. He wasn’t going to seduce her, after all.
    Oh, dear, she was a perilously wicked creature!
    “Anna?”
    She started at his use of her name.
    “Anna, tell me about the book.”
    And so she did, not making a great deal of it because it was quite a silly story. She told how Count Nacre had trapped poor Dulcinea on the very eve of her wedding to Roland, and hidden her in the deserted tower of his castle, where he intended to ruin her, thus forcing her to marry him instead.
    “And each night he would come to her, intending”—she was blushing again—“intending the worst. But something would always happen to disturb them.” She found the courage to look at him. “It is a little like Scherazade, my lord, except that stupid Dulcinea does nothing to change her fate. She just faints and weeps.”
    His lips twitched. “Unlike you.”
    Anna’s face was heating again. “I did. Weep.”
    “True, and most disconcerting it was, child. But you also smashed me on the head with a heavy glass. I’m sure Dul-cinea could have done the same.”
    “Yes, she could. If I ’d been her I would have waited by the door and hit him with a poker as he came in. In fact, I saw nothing in the book to suggest that Dulcinea couldn’t have opened the door from her own side any time she wanted. But you see, she was afraid of the rats.”
    He laughed out loud. “Oh, the scorn! Are you not afraid of rats, Anna?”
    Something in his manner was causing a new kind of heat, a warmth that came from his relaxed manner and smiling eyes, from his admiration. “I don’t like them, my lord, but if it were rats or Count Nacre, I ’d chance the rats.”
    “I’m sure you would. And so the fainting maiden waits patiently for Roland to arrive on his white charger and throw her over his saddlebow.”
    “Hardly at the top of a tower, my lord.”
    “True. So what did happen?”
    Anna settled to telling the story. “Roland confronts Count Nacre in his hall, where they engage mightily with their swords. The contest is equal …”
    “How old is Count Nacre?”
    “Oh, quite old. At least forty.”
    “Ancient,” he remarked dryly. “But then the contest is unlikely to be equal. He probably has the gout.”
    “The count is a mighty warrior, my lord, champion of the king. May I continue?”
    “I do beg your pardon,” he said unrepentantly. “So they engage mightily with their swords. Do they batter themselves to simultaneous exhaustion?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Why not? Ah, she frowns at me …”
    Anna was indeed frowning, though she was hard-pressed not to giggle. “Because, my lord, the count suddenly comes to a realization of his own wickedness and throws himself upon Roland’s sword.”
    He blinked. “How very disconcerting.”
    “Hush, my lord!” She bit her lip and pushed gamely on. “Roland races up the tower to Dulcinea …”
    “Despite his wounds?”
    “Heroes are never wounded. Or not seriously.”
    “Then they are hardly very heroic, are they?”
    “Have you ever been wounded?” The words popped out before she could control them, fracturing the lighthearted atmosphere.