Free The Clarendon Rose by Kathryn Anthony

  He looked straight into Tina’s eyes as he continued,   “Of course, it is somewhat rarer to encounter a woman of the ton who can reason as cogently as a man and who somehow has enough awareness of the world to be unaffected by rosy visions of reality.”
    “Is it?”   Tina hoped her voice sounded closer to normal than she felt.   “Perhaps you simply haven’t spoken to enough women of sense.”
    “That is entirely possible, given that until recently, I did not have much of it myself,” he replied, briefly rueful.
    She found herself unable to look away from those mesmerizing dark eyes.   “And the ability to reason is an acquired one.   But I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to start quoting Wollstonecraft at you.”
    “Few men would, Miss Merriweather, particularly on an afternoon such as this.   But, I have a feeling that even the controversial Miss Wollstonecraft’s writing would acquire an unprecedented element of fascination if it were you who did the quoting.”
    Tina finally managed to tear her gaze away from his.   Though he hadn’t moved, for a moment, it had felt like he was close enough for her to feel his breath against her cheek.   “Do you indeed, sir?”
    “After all, it’s rarer still to find a paragon of a woman who is a realist, a rhetorician and a siren.   Your voice alone would drive men to their doom, before they’d even had a chance to glimpse your face.”
    The spell was broken.   Tina flushed with anger at this outrageous comment, particularly given that it must simply be another manifestation of his charm, rather than any genuine admiration.   Was it really necessary that he bid to have every woman casting herself at his feet—even those he had no intention of seducing?   How dare he think to add me to his coterie of doting admirers!
    Of course, no small part of her anger was directed at herself.   He might not be able to stop himself from being charming, but why did she—a woman of such supposed good sense —have to be so susceptible to it?
    She rose from the blanket and strode away, before turning back to glare at him, her eyes narrowed with fury.   “You go too far, Your Grace.   What can you possibly hope to gain with this arrant flattery?”  
    His eyebrows rose.   “Your ability to accept an honest compliment so graciously does you credit, Miss Merriweather.”
    The amusement in his tone only served to add to her fury.   She shook her head, glaring at him with contempt, though in the sweep of her anger, it wasn’t simply the duke she saw, but also the man who had fathered her, then killed himself.   And the angry, brutal man her mother had married in order to save herself and a younger Tina from starvation.  
    “It’s so much easier for men, isn’t it?” she hissed bitterly.   “You can have your indiscretions and no-one bats an eye.   But for women, life isn’t that simple—one public misstep and we are condemned—”  
    Tina stopped herself mid-torrent, her eyes wide.   Then, trembling, she walked away from the duke, the pond—the whole scene.   She had to be alone, if only for a few moments, in order to compose herself.   Because even as she heard the words pouring from her mouth, she came to the sudden realization that it was her mother speaking.  
    Closing her eyes, she thought back to those sordid times in the set of rooms that were all they could afford—the filth of the maggoty tables and food, the rats that scuttled across the floors in the darkness so that Tina had to be careful where she stepped at night.  
    They had lived on the edge of one of the more notorious rookeries—those London districts where all, from the petty confidence tricksters to the most hardened murderers, conducted their business.   Though Tina suspected that her stepfather often strayed over to the wrong side of the law in the course of his business dealings, it was not a subject her mother deemed suitable for discussion.   Instead, Emily Staunton had