The Husband Trap by Warren Tracy Anne

Author:Warren Tracy Anne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical Romance, England, Historical Fiction, Romance, Historical, Regency Fiction, Love Stories, Regency
ISBN: 9780345483089
Publisher: Ivy
Published: 2005-12-31T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

She didn’t have an opportunity to speak to Kit alone until the following day.

She found him in the library, an expression of disgust marring his pleasant features, a huge textbook open on his lap.

He looked up as she entered the room. “Dear merciful God, reprieved at last. Vicar Dittlesby stuck me in here an hour past with this bloody boring tome on the Hundred Years War. I ask you, after the first fifty, did any of them still remember what they were fighting about?”

He slapped the book shut. “Thanks, by the by, for springing me out of this place for a jaunt to the city next week. The vicar’s nose has been out of joint ever since Adrian broke the news to him this morning.”

“You are most welcome.” She slid into the chair next to his. “But I didn’t do it for solely altruistic reasons.”

“Why’d you do it, then? I did wonder.”

She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “Because I need your help.”

His dark eyebrows scrunched together. “What kind of help?”

“The desperate kind.” She clutched her hands together, her knuckles turning white. “You’re the only one I can turn to, the only one who knows the truth.

“Oh, Kit,” she lamented, “London is going to be an utter disaster. I’ll never be able to carry it off. I’ll be unmasked at the very first entertainment I set foot into. They’ll all know.”

“No one has known so far. Why will London be any different?”

“Because I’m different. Because I am not Jeannette. It’s one thing to fool a few country neighbours who’ve never even met her. It’s quite another to convince a couple hundred of the Ton’s elite, people who once anointed her their reigning belle, that I’m the Incomparable Lady Jeannette.”

“You fooled Lord and Lady Carter. They’d already met Jeannette.”

“But that’s one-on-one, not in a large group.” She rubbed fretful fingers over a sliver of lace trim on her dress. “Just walking into a crowd twists my tongue into a knot. My mind goes blank and I end up gawping like a fish plucked out of the water, gasping for air. You must remember how it is. You met me before, back in the days when I was still me.”

Yes, he did remember. Shy, awkward, tongue-tied, she’d been exactly as she claimed. Despite her undeniable beauty, once the introductions were finished, people tended to look elsewhere because of her lack of animation, leaving her to fade into the background. One more timid flower forgotten amongst the other timid flowers that lined the ballroom walls, dwelling alone and unwanted on solitary chairs.

A brief wave of shame passed over him, brought face-to-face with the knowledge that he’d been no different in his original assessment and treatment of her than so many others. Now that he knew her, liked her, he realized how mistaken his first impression had been. Still, others might find no fault in their past actions, even if the truth were known to them.

“You do have a point,” he mused. “Yet I believe you may be able to overcome it.

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