Free Sweet Temptation by Leigh Greenwood

unpacked.”
    “Come again after dinner,” said Georgiana without raising her head. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”
    “Only if ye have a good nap,” said Rose. “We all know ye get overtired when ye talk too much.”
    Georgiana nodded her head slightly and closed her eyes. “It seems all I ever do is rest, and still I’m so tired.”
    Rose jerked her head imperatively toward the door and the young people left the room.
    “He’ll be all right now,” Georgiana said, addressing her husband without opening her eyes. “She’ll see that he comes to no harm.”
    “Of course he’ll be all right,” her husband agreed reassuringly, but he remembered the anger in Gavin’s eyes and wondered.
    Sara sat before her mirror while Betty combed her hair. She could hardly believe this huge room was hers alone. She had spent years in a tiny cubicle that wasn’t as large as the dressing room of this enormous apartment. The bed was even long enough for Betty. All of Sara’s new clothes had virtually disappeared among the endless shelves of the vast closet. She could not imagine having enough clothes to occupy all the storage space, and if she had, she didn’t know how she would possibly find time to wear them.
    She had walked about in a daze, peering into corners and trying out chairs; while Betty had unpacked and put away her clothes. “It must be wonderful to be a countess, if you can have a room like this,” she said to Betty, as she sank onto the bed, luxuriating in the deep, soft mattresses.
    “It depends upon your lord,” Betty pointed out. “It won’t do you a particle bit of good to have a string of titles, if you don’t have money and connections.” Sara sat up with a puzzled frown.
    “Do you mean if I had been poor, nobody would have wanted to marry me?”
    “Not with you as near to an orphan as makes no difference. What would they get by it?”
    “But my husband would love me?”
    “The upper class doesn’t look for love where they marry.”
    “But I love Gavin.”
    “You’re lucky. Most people marry where it will do them the most good, and look for love later.”
    “Is that why the girls at school never bothered with me?”
    “That, and because your father made his money in trade.”
    “But Gavin married me, and he’s important.”
    “His father and yours were in business together. You might say you’re both tarred with the same brush.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “Miss Rachel told me. She said someone ought to know.”
    Sara chewed on her finger for a while, deep in thought. “Then people won’t accept me.”
    “I don’t know. I suppose if your husband is accepted, you will be, too. But you can never tell about women. Just imagine those snobbish young misses at Miss Rachel’s all grown up, and you can see what you’ll be up against.”
    Sara was thoughtful. “Then, if I do something they don’t like, they might never accept me.”
    “Probably,” said Betty noncommittally.
    Sara did not mention the subject again, but it never left her mind during the rest of the afternoon.
    Dinner was a strain. The Earl seemed to feel it was his responsibility to carry the weight of the conversation, but his cold, formal style of speaking inhibited Sara, and she barely said a word the whole time. Gavin’s foul mood made the tension even worse. Being in his father’s company had revived all the anger and rigidity in his temper, and by the time they rose from the table, Sara was almost afraid to address any remark to him.
    She was relieved when she was allowed to remove to the drawing room. She noticed the harpsichord immediately, but as she expected the men to join her shortly, she busied herself with some needlework. After half an hour, boredom caused her to throw it aside and approach the harpsichord. It was a magnificent instrument, much more beautiful than the harpsichord at Miss Rachel’s Seminary. Lovingly she stroked the polished wood, before gingerly lifting the