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

Her eyes fixed on his scar.
    “I’m no hero, Anna.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “Villains get wounded, too. Proceed with your story or I’ll show you my other wounds, which would move this meeting out of the field of honor, Miss Featherstone.”
    Anna was crushingly aware of having been relegated to formality, and swallowed a hint of tears. “Where was I, my lord?”
    “Your hero was racing up the tower steps despite his many wounds, and muscles that burned and ached from the mighty battle.”
    “So he enters Dulcinea’s chamber, causing her to swoon.”
    “Twit. You would have tended his wounds, wouldn’t you?”
    “My lord, he wasn’t wounded!”
    “How could she tell? He was doubtless covered by the evil count’s blood.”
    Anna paused. “That’s true, isn’t it? I didn’t say it was a good story, my lord.”
    “Just as well. So, what next? I suppose he has to carry her down the winding stairs. Tricky, that, I should think.”
    “Doubtless, especially as an earthquake starts just then …”
    “An earthquake? The very earth protesting at the count’s demise? Then he must be the hero, and Roland, vile Roland, a wastrel and a murderer.”
    “Nonsense. Roland is the very epitome of a hero. But the stones do begin to tumble around them, and the steps crumble beneath their feet …”
    “Whereupon, he slaps her awake and makes her use her feet as they race to safety?”
    “Of course not! In fact, she does come out of her swoon …”
    “Thank heavens …”
    “… But by then they have rats swarming around them, which sends her off again. Please, my lord, don’t make me laugh or I will never finish!”
    “There’s more?” he asked, straight-faced, but with eyes full of hilarity. He looked exactly like the portrait.
    With difficulty, Anna gathered her wits. “It can hardly end then!”
    “I don’t see why not. They can be entombed together as an eternal monument to folly.”
    “They manage to survive. Just as they emerge, the tower crumbles, leaving only a heap of stones …”
    “And a lot of homeless rats.”
    “I don’t think that was mentioned,” she said severely. “The king then arrives …”
    “George III?” he queried in astonishment.
    “No! King Rudolph of … Oh, I’ve forgotten the country. It’s all made up.”
    He raised one brow. “You astonish me, Miss Feather-stone.”
    A giggle escaped, but Anna struggled on. “The king has found out that Count Nacre is plotting treason and has come to execute him …”
    “How very unlawful. Due process, my dear.”
    “… But now he makes Roland Count of Nacre …”
    “Whereupon Dulcinea breaks off the match because she refuses to live in a rat-infested castle.”
    “The castle wasn’t rat-infested, my lord!”
    “It will be now the rats don’t have their cozy tower to live in. Where do you think all those rats went?”
    Anna succumbed to laughter. “Oh dear! It is all … all so silly, isn’t it?”
    He leaned over and passed her a handkerchief. “Very. Are you truly addicted to these novels, Anna?”
    Anna controlled her laughter and wiped her eyes. “Most of them are not as bad as that. Even Mrs. Jamison’s earlier ones were much better, though her heroines did tend to swoon at the drop of a pin.”
    “From the little I know of her, Lady Delabury was of much the same temperament.”
    Anna made a business of drying her cheeks, considering yet another statement that indicated that the earl and Lady Delabury had not been intimate. Then why on earth had the woman committed suicide in this very room?
    He leaned back, sober again and thoughtful, and echoed her thought. “I see nothing in that silly story to explain why the author decided to commit suicide, or why she chose to do so in this room.”
    “Perhaps because she’d written such a terrible novel?” Anna clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, how uncharitable!”
    He focused his serious features and amused eyes on her. “Quite. And Margaret