Free To Be Seduced by Ann Stephens Page A

quandary while keeping her hands busy, she hesitantly entered Richard’s bedchamber. She scarcely remembered her father, and had no memory of his masculine haunts.
    She need not have been intimidated. The furniture was as rundown as that in the outer room. A sturdy four-poster bed dominated the room, festooned with dusty hangings of an indeterminate design. Along one wall stood a clothes press, partially open. Inside she saw his store of clothing, neatly arranged. A small table sat by the bed. The handsomest piece in the room was a chest of modern design, with two drawers under the main compartment.
    However, the rest of the room looked as chaotic as the outer one had been. She tsked at the unmade bed, the empty wineglasses and papers strewn about.
    Bethany sorted through the litter and piled it in the doorway for washing or removal. In the smaller room, she finished easily. Thinking next to change the bed linens, she lifted the lid of the chest, hoping to find clean sheets and pillowcases. She remembered reading a note of money owed to a laundress for washing some. To her relief, a clean set lay folded inside. Scooping them out, she closed the lid and examined the bed once more.
    A shove on the mattress proved it to be heavy and stiff. Changing the sheets on such an ungainly piece of furniture would challenge two women. By herself, Bethany knew she would be covered in sweat before the job was done.
    After a long moment, she furtively undressed down to her shift, carefully folding the new dress and placing it in the clothes press. Just in case, she shut the door to the front room before commencing her struggle with the cumbersome mattress.
    The old sheets came off reasonably easily, and she bundled them up and put them outside the bedchamber’s door before closing it again. Perhaps she could coax the laundress to wash them by promising payment upon her marriage. Placing the clean ones on in their stead proved as difficult as she had expected. In the end, with much grunting and grumbling, she succeeded.
    Blowing several escaped strands of hair from her face with a loud “Whuff!,” she flopped back on the bed to catch her breath before smoothing the coverlet back up.
    She considered it a matter of most unfortunate timing that Richard chose that moment to open the door.
     
    He had spent a difficult hour with the trustee of the Dallison fortune. Mr. George Armitage turned out to have known the late Mr. Dallison. He possessed a suspicious nature and a dislike of moral depravity. He expressed doubt when Lord Harcourt informed him of the young lady’s presence in London and outrage at his claim to have spent two nights alone with her.
    In the face of such disbelief, Richard invited the gaunt banker to accompany him back to his rooms and speak to Mistress Dallison himself.
    Mr. Armitage accepted the young nobleman’s implicit dare, his supercilious air proclaiming that he was about to unmasque a hoax. The two tromped along in cold silence. The presence of the large and rough-looking Lane in the hallway shook the man’s assurance. Richard sailed up to his lodgings with the banker in his wake.
    Bowing the man in before him, he followed, only to experience his own momentary shock at finding the room empty. Perceiving the litter and the bundle of sheets by the door to the bedchamber, he languidly stepped over them and opened it. As he hoped, Mr. Armitage’s eyes widened at the linens.
    “Bethany?” He stopped short at the sight of her lying nearly naked in his unmade bed. ’Twas one he quite fancied, having imagined something similar over the last two nights. Although in his visions she did not gape at him in shock. He could not keep the grin off his face. “What an enchanting surprise!”
    She scrambled to her knees and grabbed the coverlet to shield herself from his appreciative view. With a shriek of outrage, she dove toward the small table beside his bed.
    Before he knew it, his heavy shaving mug whistled past his ears,