The Brooding Earl's Proposition (HQR Historical) by Laura Martin

Author:Laura Martin [Martin, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance, Women's Fiction, Regency & Victorian Romance, London Society, England & Britain, 19th Century, Forever Love, Bachelor, Single Woman, Love Possibility, Hearts Desire, Life-Changes, Second Chance Reunion, Honesty & Trust, Home & Family, Lifetime Love, Romantic Schemes, Beautiful & Feisty, Love-Family & Forever, Action & Adventure, Sensual Story Theme, Family & Domestic Life-Young Child-Orphaned Nieces
Publisher: Harlequin Historical; Original Edition
Published: 2020-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

At dawn Selina gave up trying to sleep and rose, crossing to the curtains and pulling them open to let the soft light of the morning in through the window. The tavern was stirring, with footsteps padding backwards and forward along the corridor and the quiet clatter of pots below. She fingered her dress that Mrs Ruthers had hung by the fire in the kitchen the night before after washing off the worst of the mud. The hem was still a little damp, but the rest was dry and overall it was presentable, if not completely clean.

Slowly she slipped the cotton nightgown from her shoulders, assailed with the memory of Lord Westcroft’s hands doing the same thing last night. She felt the heat rise up inside her as she remembered how his fingers had danced across her skin, how his lips had nipped and teased until she felt as though her whole world was spinning.

‘Enough,’ she said, pushing the nightgown down over her hips and stepping out of it, hastily beginning to pull on her functional woollen dress to combat the early morning chill in the air.

Last night had been madness. Perhaps she could blame it on hysteria, a delayed reaction to the carriage accident.

It hadn’t felt mad, though. It had felt right. Even though every lesson in how a young lady should conduct herself, in morality, told her it was wrong. If the landlord hadn’t interrupted them when he did, who knew how far things would have gone.

‘That would have been a bad idea,’ Selina told herself sternly, unable to ignore completely the residue of desire burning deep inside her. It would have been a bad idea. She knew how men of Lord Westcroft’s class treated women who were their social inferiors. It wasn’t that she thought Lord Westcroft a bad man, far from it, but he had been brought up to believe women of inferior social status were not worth the same considerations he would show his social equal.

He’s not your father, she told herself. Even eighteen months on Selina still couldn’t quite believe the man who had doted on her had been capable of treating her mother so poorly, of treating his only daughter so poorly. Plus his total inconsideration of what life would be like for her when she had to hear she was illegitimate from her half-brother who had taken great pleasure in turning her from her home.

Quickly she suppressed all thoughts of her father. Now her problem was Lord Westcroft, or more precisely her reaction to him. She couldn’t pretend she was the innocent party in a seduction. Lord Westcroft might be vastly more experienced than she, but she had been a willing participant each and every step of the way. She’d known what was going to happen the moment she had agreed to go downstairs with him for a drink in the deserted tavern.

‘Everyone is allowed to make one little mistake,’ she told herself as she looked critically into the small mirror set on the dressing table.

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