Miss Goldsleigh's Secret by Amylynn Bright

Author:Amylynn Bright [Bright, Amylynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Amazon: B00CY2OZLW
Publisher: Amylynn Bright
Published: 2013-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Cassandra saw him first.

“Do we know that man?” Cassie asked her sister and anyone else within earshot.

Francesca shook her head. “I don’t, and I thought I knew everyone. He certainly appears like a man on a mission though, doesn’t he?”

“He is quite handsome,” Penelope added.

Olivia hadn’t paid much attention to the conversational exchange up to this point as the sum total of the people she knew in London were standing in a loose circle with her, and she wouldn’t be much help anyway. In fact, she didn’t know the man had joined their group until he thrust himself between her and Anna, and his hand snaked around her left elbow and gripped tightly.

Surprised, Olivia pivoted on her heel in a combined effort to withdraw her elbow and to see who accosted her. The wind burst from her lungs in a startled gasp, and she staggered back against the solid bulk of Lord Dalton.

“Olivia.” The man said her name smoothly and used his clawlike grip to pull her upright again. Olivia was still too startled to resist him. She couldn’t even speak.

What does one say to a ghost?

She knew she must look like an idiot, gaping at him with no sound escaping from her slack mouth. But a person couldn’t speak when she couldn’t breathe. When had she last taken a breath? She was going to faint. When had she turned into a woman who fainted? She seemed to be doing an awful lot of it lately.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time,” the man told her with a smug smile.

Olivia simply stared and shook her head, repeating the motion over and over. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. The litany, like the repetitive motion, did nothing to ease her panic.

“And you are?” The voice came from her other side, a strong, protective one she wanted desperately to hide behind. Lord Dalton.

“Baron Goldsleigh.”

“Cousin Reginald.” Dalton’s tone was deadly, low and intense. Olivia dragged her eyes from Reginald and looked at the other faces around her. Penny and Cassie each stared at her cousin with a murderous glare. The others shared expressions of various levels of confusion and malice.

“I am her cousin and her guardian as well as baron,” Reginald confirmed.

How was this possible? Reginald was dead. What had she been running from all this time? Had he sent the men she’d thought were the runners?

“Don’t you have anything to say to your long-lost cousin, Livvy?” Reginald taunted.

“What do you want?” Olivia asked him, her voice barely audible. He still had her by the arm, but she had moved as close to Lord Dalton as she was physically able.

“You, of course. I’ve come to bring you home.”

Olivia wasn’t going to faint. She was going to vomit. She was going to mortify her new friends and her hostess by casting up her champagne and roast duckling dinner on the polished parquet floor.

“I think you should unhand the lady.” The Duke of Morewether had walked the two paces to stand behind her.

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