Wilde in Love by Eloisa James

Author:Eloisa James [James, Eloisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2017-10-30T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

That evening Willa settled down with a book in her hand. Lady Knowe had lent her a tale of great derring-do, with knights dashing hither and yon, wasting a great deal of energy.

The novelist had not depicted a realistic world. Yet Willa kept reading. The castle had fallen silent by the time a large piece of fictional armor fell from the fictional sky and crushed one of the fictional characters.

At that, she sighed and closed the book. She simply didn’t see the purpose of fiction. Events like these made her too curious about things for which there was no answer.

Why armor, for example? Why not a chicken? A chicken as big as a house, perhaps?

Lindow Castle was full of fascinating people. She saw no reason to read about invented events when life was complex enough as it was.

Her bedchamber was bright with moonlight that flooded in the windows of the castle along with the scent of honeysuckle. Sweetpea kept running through the pool of light, a black-and-white streak. She was busily taking everything out of Willa’s knotting bag and stowing each piece under the dressing table.

Willa squinted at the moon; when she was wearing her spectacles she couldn’t see much beyond the printed page. Still, she could tell that the moon was flattened on one side and round on the other, like an overstuffed pigeon.

Right there was the reason why she could never be a novelist. The moon was supposed to be a silver disc, or the goddess Diana’s face … not a fat bird.

The quiet rap on her door was a welcome interruption; she’d been longing to tell Lavinia about the mad missionary’s daughter, but the encounter with Prudence made her feel oddly unbalanced, and she had retired to her chamber rather than return to the salon to play cards.

When she opened the door, cautiously so that Sweetpea couldn’t dash past her, Alaric—not Lavinia—was in the corridor.

There was absolutely no occasion on which a gentleman may acceptably pay a visit to a lady’s chamber—unless that lady had issued an invitation to an affaire. To dally, in plain English. Evidently, Alaric thought she was a lightskirt.

Willa stared at him for a second, feeling a crushing sense of disappointment. It was one thing to kiss her. Or contrive a pretend betrothal. It was quite another to conclude that either fact could be construed as an invitation to further intimacies.

“Lord Alaric,” she said coldly. “You have so many doors to knock on at night. I assure you this one is not a possibility.”

“I didn’t think any of the ladies behind those doors would be interested in this.” He uncurled his hand, which he’d held in a fist. Willa took off her spectacles and looked down to find two roly-polies and an earthworm on his palm. It wriggled.

Willa raised her eyes to his, dumbfounded.

“I brought them for Sweetpea,” he said. “I noticed this afternoon that while she ate insects of several varieties, she is particularly fond of roly-polies.”

“How on earth did you determine that?”

“She pranced,” Alaric said, eyes innocent.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.