Dancing At Midnight by Julia Quinn

Author:Julia Quinn [Quinn, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2009-07-01T20:03:41+00:00

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A few nights later Belle was cuddled up in her bed, several anthologies of poetry strewn around her. "He's not going to fool me with another 'Song—To Celia' again," she said to herself. "I'll be ready for him."She was a little worried that he might be able to trip her up with one of the newer poets. Her governess had gone over only the classics with her, and it was only because Lord Byron was so notorious that she'd known "She Walks in Beauty."

A quick trip to the bookshop that afternoon had supplied her with Lyrical Ballads, by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as well as Songs of Innocence and Experience by a rather o b scure poet named William Blake. The proprietor assured her that Blake would someday find great fame and tried to sell her The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in addition, but Belle had put her foot down, figuring that there was no way John would be able to find something romantic in that.

A smile on her face, Belle opened up Songs and began to flip through the pages, reading aloud as she went along.

"Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

She pursed her lips and looked up. "This modern stuff is very strange." Shaking her head, she turned back to the book.

Thump !

Belle caught her breath. What was that?

Thump !

No doubt about it, someone was outside her window. Terror gripped her and she slid out of bed to the floor. On her hands and knees, she crawled across the room to her dressing table. With a quick glance to the window, she grabbed a pewter candlestick from Boston that Emma had given her as a birthday present a few years earlier.

Remaining close to the ground, Belle scooted over to the window. Careful to stay out of the intruder's line of vision, she climbed up onto a chair which was placed against the wall right next to the window. Shaking with fear, she waited.

The window creaked and then she saw it start to rise. A black gloved hand appeared on the windowsill.

Belle stopped breathing.

A second hand found its place next to the first, and then a firm body tumbled in soundlessly, somersaulting when it hit the floor.

Belle raised the candlestick, setting her aim for the prowler's head when he suddenly turned and looked up at her.

"Good God, woman! Are you trying to kill me?"

"John?"

Chapter 13

"What are you doing here?" Belle gasped.

"Would you put that thing down!"

Belle finally lowered the candlestick and offered John her hand. He took it and got to his feet. "What are you doing here?" she repeated, her heart starting to flutter strangely at the sight of him in her bedroom.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Well, he might be here to kidnap her and spirit her away to Gretna Green, or he might be here to ravish her, or he might just be here to say hello. "No," she said slowly. "It isn't obvious.

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