Free Improper Ladies by AMANDA MCCABE Page A

to him in her pretty face.
    Surely she could not be related to the Lord Lyndon, Justin, who had come to the Golden Feather? That would simply be too much coincidence, too much like one of Phoebe’s beloved silly novels. But there could not be two Lord Lyndons in England.
    Oh, what if he was here! How terrible that would be.
    But how wonderful, her traitorous mind whispered, if she did see him again . . .
    “Mrs. Aldritch?” Lady Lyndon said, clearly alarmed. “Are you quite all right? You look rather faint.”
    “It is just the sun, Lady Lyndon,” Caroline managed to gasp.
    “Yes, it is rather warm to be standing about. Won’t you join us in the tea shop?”
    Phoebe came up to them just in time to hear this. Even though she could have no idea who this woman was her sister was conversing with, she said with great enthusiasm, “A tea shop? Oh, yes, Caro, let’s! I am quite famished.”
    Go to the tea shop, where no doubt this woman’s sons, both of whom had met her as Mrs. Archer, were waiting? Caroline did not think that a wise idea. She had to collect her scattered thoughts before she met Lord Lyndon again. “We would not want to intrude,” she said.
    “Of course you would not be intruding!” Lady Lyndon protested. “Ah, here come my sons now.”
    Caroline pressed her gloved hand to her suddenly heaving stomach. What if this truly was him ? What if he recognized her and told all the world the truth about her past?
    But a part of her, a part she scarcely dared acknowledge, hoped that it was he.
    She turned around and pressed her hand even tighter to her stomach. It was he. Justin.
    His hair glinted almost a gold in the sunlight, and the lines about his vivid blue eyes deepened as he smiled at his mother. His gaze flickered over Caroline, too, in curiosity.
    She reached up, unconsciously trying to tug the wide brim of her bonnet forward even farther, so she could hide beneath it.
    Next to her, Phoebe had gone suddenly still, ceasing to bounce on her feet for the first time all day. “Oh, Caro,” she whispered, “is he not the handsomest man you ever saw! He should be in a novel.”
    Caroline looked at her sister, horrified. Phoebe, attracted to Justin? What a nightmare. How could she possibly like him when he was hers, Caroline’s?
    She was even more horrified by that quick, flashing thought. Of course he was not hers; he never could be.
    But he could not belong to Phoebe, either. The very thought was absurd!
    “Phoebe,” she whispered back, “he is above ten years older than you!”
    “How can he be? I declare he must be only one-and-twenty at the most.”
    Then Caroline saw that in her haste to jump to ridiculous conclusions, she had missed the fact that Phoebe was not looking at Justin at all. Her gaze was focused past him, on the man who followed him.
    A man in an orange brocade waistcoat and pea-green coat.
    Harry Seward.
    “Is he not a vision?” Phoebe sighed.
    Caroline groaned and closed her eyes against the “vision.” Oh, why could the ground not just open up and swallow her whole!

Chapter Eight
    “Justin! Have you ever seen such an angel of perfection before?” Harry whispered. He stopped moving forward in midstride and stood frozen as a block of marble, his eyes wide and staring.
    Justin, too, looked at the woman who stood talking to their mother and decided that for once he had to agree with his brother’s taste. She was as close to an “angel of perfection” as he had seen since . . .
    Well, since his afternoon in Mrs. Archer’s office.
    Not that this lady resembled Mrs. Archer in any way. She was dressed quietly but stylishly in a walking dress of pale yellow muslin and a yellow and white bonnet. Even though her face was half in shadow from that bonnet’s wide brim, he could see a small, straight nose, aristocratic cheekbones, and soft, silvery blond hair.
    Yes, she was lovely. He would have thought her too subtle for Harry’s taste, though.
    He glanced at his brother, oddly