Free Annie Burrows by Reforming the Viscount Page B

the room and saw Rose looking back at her with open curiosity.
    Oh dear. She hoped he would not linger talking to her for long, or Rose was bound to want to know what they had been discussing. And Rose was far too perceptive and inquisitive to be fobbed off for very long. Though her own thoughts in regard to Lord Rothersthorpe were far too muddled for her to comprehend, let alone attempt to explain to anyone else.
    ‘Perhaps,’ Lord Rothersthorpe continued, having raised his glass to Rose in salute, ‘it is just that something about the expression on your face reminded me of the girl you used to be. Which, in turn, made me behave like the green boy I used to be, too. An attack of nostalgia.’ His expression cleared. ‘Yes, that must have been it.’
    ‘You must certainly have changed since those days,’ she said, with a touch of asperity, ‘if you have to examine your motives for wanting to speak to an old friend.’
    ‘And thank God for it,’ he replied, his face turning cynical. ‘In those days I was completely taken in by that air of fragility you used to cultivate. Though fortunately, you have lost it, now.’ He frowned. ‘At least I thought you had.’ He gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘And yet you only have to look the slightest bit troubled to have me galloping to your rescue all over again.’
    ‘You never once galloped to my rescue,’ she retorted.
    ‘Oh? That is not what you used to say. Whenever I asked you to dance, you used to hang on my arm, looking up into my face as though I was a knight on a white charger.’ He bit the words out between clenched teeth. ‘You used to plead with me to take you out for air on the terrace, or a walk in the park...’
    ‘I did no such thing!’
    ‘Perhaps not in so many words, I will concede that point. But you used to plead with your eyes. They used to have such a speaking expression in them. Like a spaniel,’ he finished on a sneer.
    ‘Well I...that is, m...’ She finally managed to untangle her tongue. ‘I wonder that you b-bothered with me, then, if I reminded you of a d-dog. And exactly how did taking me for a walk equate with rescuing me?’
    ‘I took you out from under the shadow of that chaperon of yours, that’s how. The minute I pried you away from her you blossomed. You lost your stutter, you laughed and smiled. Sometimes, you looked so pretty I wondered that other fellows did not notice it. Though I gather that was the whole point, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Pretty?’ The shock of having a compliment flung at her in a way that made it sound as though he would rather have been insulting her filled her with a strange mix of emotions. ‘You thought I was pretty?’ The past swirled round her, like a gossamer cloud. She’d adored him and he’d secretly thought she was pretty. He’d never said so, but then he’d done all he could to keep things between them light. Paying compliments would have led her to hope for things he wasn’t prepared to offer.
    Still, she had dared to believe he genuinely liked her, because nobody had forced him to take her for walks in the park. He had not needed to dance with her every time they attended the same balls, either. There were plenty of other damsels in need of a hero to brighten up their evening, were he really indifferent to her. But he had not been indifferent to her. Which was why, when he’d started to talk about marriage, she’d very nearly believed he’d meant it.
    ‘No,’ he said in a tone she’d never heard him use before, harshly scattering the shreds of memory to the four winds. ‘I thought you could become pretty, if someone were to take care of you properly. Well,’ he said with another harsh laugh, ‘time has proved me correct in that respect.’
    He ran his eyes over her body with an insufferably insolent intensity. It made her blush all over.
    ‘You have become just as beautiful,’ he grated, ‘as I always suspected you could be.’
    ‘B-beautiful?’ That surpassed pretty. Prettiness