Free Red Wine For Miss Parker - Another very romantic Comedy (Delicious Regency by Ruby Royce, Book 2) by Ruby Royce Page A

in, take her in his arms, kiss her pouting lips and tell her how much he loved her, how long he had endured this torture of wanting her, ever since she had started to grow into that wild and breathtakingly beautiful young woman he had just been talking to. How many nights had he sought relief with other women, trying to get the girl with the liquid cornflower eyes and the tangling mane of gold out of his mind? How much money had he spent in brothels on forgetting his best friend's way too young sister? Four years of feverishly trying to expel her from his thoughts had ended in what? — marrying her?  
    She was not too young anymore, but she was still so innocent and vulnerable at heart, always with her head in the clouds. She was a whirlwind sometimes but a whirlwind in a corn field on a clear blue day. What was she to do with a rotten creature like himself?  
    From a dynastic point of view it made all the sense in the world to marry her, his mother would be delighted. But from a human prospective it was a disaster.
    Why on earth had he said that he would marry her? Why had Dominic pushed him there? He should have known better, being one of the few who knew what lay beyond the stern and noble facade of the Earl of Darlington.
    Too late now. He would marry her but he would keep himself in check, be considerate and wise. Above all, he would keep her well protected from that other life of his.
     

Thirteen

    Palazzo Sforza, midnight

    "Ha! As if I cared! I don't care one bit! Not at all! Not for him, or for anybody! I will take the veil. Be a nun. I'll make a vow of poverty and silence. No, only poverty. Silence won't do for me. I'll be a babbling nun, saying all the things I want without disturbing anybody. I'll be sitting in a cell high up in the mountains, looking out across the world with nobody trying to marry me off to some lord or other. What a blessing that would be. I'd not stay in England, nononono, I would have to go somewhere with plenty of red wine. I find it a most delicious beverage and I shall have another glass of it right now.

    Ah! Better! Oh, this must be a magic potion, I feel so light at heart. I don't think I ever had more than two glasses before… I should be interested to see what happens after three or four… Who knows?  
    Maybe I'm simply going to be a drunkard. Then I can forget everything. Everybody. Especially one everybody. Oh, I wish I could forget him.  
    I shall, he's going away to Mexico, isn't he?  
    Gigi told me when she came up in the afternoon to say how sorry she was. Ah, but she can't have known it had not been her I'd really been talking to, it had been him! It was he alone who was to know that I really did not want to get married at all and that I was not an ambitious little schemer! Oh, that shameful moment when he read those silly names in my diary. How silly and stupid he must have thought me! I can't bare it! I'll have to have more wine.

    OH NO! I hadn't thought of it before. Does he think I'm in love with him? Because I wrote those names? Does he think I'm an infatuated little girl who puts his name to hers? That's a dreadful idea, but, everything considered, that's what he really must think! When I remember what I said to him even before, how I went on and on, oh help! No. I can't let it stand like that, with my honour at stake!"

    Flora staggered out of bed.  
    When she finally stood upright, shaking slightly, she looked about herself. Somehow the world was not as solid as it used to be.
    Why had she been getting up? Right, to talk to the prince.  
    But where was he? She pondered the question for a while. Then she remembered that the Prince did not live in Palazzo Sforza at all but on the other side of the lake.
    She was on the stairs leading down carrying the three-quarters empty whine bottle along.  
    Could she walk there? No… that was too far, twenty miles at least, she guess. He would have left once she'd got there.
    Swimming? He would do that. She could, it