Free Lady Belling's Secret by Amylynn Bright Page A

bigger disaster. Every time she tried to think it all through, her head would pound and she’d find it difficult to breathe. There was just so much that could go horribly, horribly wrong. Everywhere she looked was a new, more gut-wrenching catastrophe. What if Thomas thought telling everyone what happened would get him what he wanted? What did he really want anyway? His insistence was bemusing to say the least. In what kind of just universe would he ignore her for sixteen years and then out of the blue decide he must marry her? The unfairness of it all was crushing.
    Being pregnant and jilting a husband at the altar would be an even bigger scandal than her uncle’s had ever been, and that particular incident had long been held up as an example of how foolish decisions ruined a person’s life like her family’s very own Aesop Fable. The best-possible scenario had her marrying Lord Dalton and managing to maintain some semblance of a stilted friendship with Thomas.
    These unsettling thoughts consumed her as she sat in the morning room with Anna and her mother and did needlework and tried to participate in small talk. It was torture, but she forced herself to sit and concentrate on the tiny stitches. Do something normal, Francesca. Everything will be fine if you do something normal.
    An hour into the farce, Francesca nearly jumped out of her skin when the great knocker sounded at the front door and then again when the butler, Jones, announced Lord Dalton into the room.
    “Good day, ladies.” Dalton graced the women with a stately bow. “I am hoping you will permit me with a walk in the park this fine day, Lady Belling.”
    Anna leapt at the opportunity to answer for her, “Oh I’m sure that would be grand, don’t you think, Frankie?”
    Frankie looked at her friend, her eyebrows almost in her hair. “Yes, I do think it’s a fine day for a stroll. Please excuse me, Lord Dalton, I’ll just fetch my hat and parasol. Anna, why don’t you help me?”
    On the fifth stair, Frankie stopped and stared at her friend open-mouthed.
    “What?” Anna asked, arms wide at her sides, palms up in question.
    “What was that?” Francesca demanded.
    “You’re making me nervous,” Anna told her. “You’re walking around this house like you expect ghosts to jump out of the closet. I could tell you were going to try to come up with some reason why you shouldn’t go with him, but he’s your fiancé, and any other lady would take the opportunity to spend some time alone with a handsome man such as Lord Dalton.”
    “Oh.” Frankie didn’t know what to say to that. It was perfectly reasonable and well thought out—a far sight better than she was able to do on her own.
    “Act like everything is perfectly ordinary,” Anna urged in a whisper. “We can’t fix this if you make it worse.”
    “All right,” Francesca said, stunned. She placed her hand on the newel post and headed up the stairs. She turned around at the landing and announced in a clear voice like a normal lady would, although, honestly, she was seriously losing her grasp on what a normal lady would do in any given situation, “I’ll be right down.”
    The park was very crowded with both pedestrian traffic and carriages. Governesses with their charges and older children in groups played tag and flew kites in the beautiful weather.
    With her hand nestled in the crook of Dalton’s arm, Francesca could easily pretend that all was right with the world. If she listened very hard to what her fiancé was saying, it was quite easy to forget that the love of her life was plotting their ruin.
    “Did you just see that dragon disappear over that hill?”
    “Umhmm.” She nodded, and then snapped up her head. “What?”
    “I was wondering if you were here.” Dalton chuckled. “Where have you been?”
    “Here. With you.”
    “In body yes, but your mind is far away.”
    “Oh. And I thought I was paying very close attention.” Francesca adjusted her parasol so that she