The Risk of Rogues by Sabrina Jeffries

Author:Sabrina Jeffries
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket Star

Five

OVER THE NEXT week, Anne took Hart’s advice. She spoke to a number of gentlemen and discovered that despite the rumors and innuendoes, there wasn’t much basis for his wicked reputation. The only gentleman who’d spoken badly of him was clearly jealous of Hart’s facility with women. He kept quizzing Anne about why her supposed “friend” was interested in “a mere cavalry captain” when there were “other, more sober men of higher rank” eager for matrimony.

Fortunately, the other gentlemen she quizzed had nothing but good things to say about Hart. He wasn’t in debt to anyone they knew of, he gambled but not to excess, and he was generally considered to be an “amiable sort of chap.”

Beyond those recommendations, however, people knew little about him, since he’d spent most of his time abroad with his regiment. And even after his return, he’d often been traveling—no one was really sure why or where. That would have roused her suspicions if he hadn’t told her about his work for Lord Fulkham.

Then again, no one seemed to know of Hart’s connection to the foreign secretary beyond his social one, so the whole matter seemed odd. Especially since she felt as if Hart was hiding something from her. Every time she brought up the subject of his prospects, he evaded it. The few bits he’d told her on the bridge were all he’d revealed, and the more she thought about it, the more it worried her. It really did seem as if he was spinning out of whole cloth some future that might never come to fruition. And considering what had happened the last time they’d made plans based on assumptions . . .

She couldn’t give him her heart again until she knew. It seemed as if he had no interest in her beyond her, but what if she was missing something?

After all, no other gentlemen had come courting in all these years. A few had flirted here and there, but that hardly counted. Once they’d realized she was no heiress, they’d lost interest.

So she needed more information. Hart had told her she could question any respectable gentleman about him, and Lord Fulkham fit that description. So she’d go right to the horse’s mouth.

She’d tried to get the foreign secretary alone a few times, but to no avail. He’d always been with either friends or his new wife. Since Anne barely knew him, it would be awkward to ask to speak to him privately.

In the meantime, Hart had pursued her relentlessly . . . and rather effectively. Every day at breakfast, a new embellishment she could use for a hat appeared beside her plate: a partridge feather, an ornate ribbon he’d obviously bought in town, a strip of buckskin . . . and a lovely gilded tassel he’d said had been on his regimental uniform.

That was not going on any hat. She’d pinned it on her corset close to her heart, though she wasn’t going to let him know it was there. Not until she was sure she could trust him with her heart.

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