Scandal by Pamela Britton

Author:Pamela Britton [Britton, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446507479
Google: 157exP0MZyUC
Goodreads: 7655116
Publisher: Forever Yours
Published: 2003-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Rein had hoped Anna might return for a midday meal, but he’d scarcely believed that she might. Thus when he saw her pushing her barrow down St. Giles High Street from his position on the roof, the feeling he got could only be described as euphoric. At last he’d be able to talk to her and resolve the issues between them—ask her to be his mistress.

He waited a full ten minutes before going to the trap that led to her attic. He expected she might bolt when she heard him, thus he was shocked when he found her sitting on the edge of her little bed, her hat tossed on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, her apron and brown work dress still in place.

“Anna?” he called, thinking she might not have heard him.

She didn’t say a word, just sat there, her gaze firmly fixed upon the windows opposite her. Sunlight cast large squares of light on the floor, the pattern casting a glow up the walls of the room. A fly buzzed a loud and lazy circle until landing on Anna’s work-worn hand. She didn’t move, didn’t so much as swat it away, just stared unblinkingly at the windows.

“Anna, what is amiss?” he asked, knowing it could not be her grandfather. He’d just left the man moments before climbing to the roof. “What has happened?”

He thought she might not answer, thought she might continue staring at that damnable glass. To his surprise she said, “’Tis over,” trying to pull her hands away.

“What is over?” he asked.

She was silent a moment, Rein suspecting that she debated with herself whether or not she should tell him. At last their gazes met, the misery and anguish in her eyes doing something to Rein’s insides that he scarcely understood.

“I had a ship set to hoist my sails,” she said softly. “For the competition. It needed to be present at the competition so the naval board could inspect my sails, only the captain what gave his word to help me left port today.”

The mind he despised for being so slow worked hard to understand how this would affect her.

“He had an offer from a trader. Triple his usual fee to run cargo to Spain and back. It’ll be weeks before he returns.”

And at last he understood.

She would not be able to enter the competition.

Rein would have expected to feel a certain amount of distress over her unhappiness. What he didn’t expect was the swell of sympathy he felt, one so great, it robbed him of breath.

“Anna,” he said at last, “I am so sorry.”

She blinked at him, her beautiful and spirited amber eyes so devoid of their usual spark, he almost pulled her into his arms.

“Do you know I have tried for six years to come up with a way to escape this bloody rookery? That I’ve spent months—nay, years—devoting myself to the task? And do you know that I realized today that I would have been better served to simply do

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