A Reckless Desire Read Online Free Page B

drudge that she could keep without wages? “I would rather tell Magdalena and my uncle myself that I’m leaving, and I’ll contrive some sort of nonsense by way of explanation, too. They do not deserve the truth. I would rather amaze them than suffer the weight of their scorn.”
    He paused, perplexed, his pen in his hand.
    “Scorn?” he repeated. “You wish to better yourself. What the devil could they scorn?”
    “Me, my lord,” she said succinctly. “They will not believe I can do this.”
    “Well, a pox on them,” he said. “
I
believe you can. You wouldn’t be permitted to fail, you know. You’ll have no choice but to succeed.”
    “Truly, my lord?” she said, stunned that he’d finally agreed. “You…you mean that?”
    “Of course,” he said, regarding her curiously. “Why would I say anything that I did not mean?”
    Yet she still couldn’t quite believe it. “You believe in me, my lord? You meant that part, too?”
    “I believe in you, yes,” he repeated with satisfying clarity, “and even more, I believe in myself to teach you. There is no conceivable way that I intend to lose to Everett, not this wager.”
    That wasn’t quite as good as having him believe in her abilities alone, but she’d accept it. In time she’d prove to him she could do it, just as she meant to prove it to so many others.
    And if Lord Rivers did not intend to lose, well, then, he’d learn soon enough that neither did she.

“What wager , Fitzroy?” Lord Everett said. He was comfortably ensconced in a large old wing chair near the front window of the club, a cheroot in one hand and a racing newspaper in the other. He was so comfortably ensconced that he had the perfect air of a gentleman who did not wish to be troubled except in the most dire of circumstance, and the faintly displeased expression on his face showed that he didn’t believe Rivers’s interruption could possibly fall into that category of extremity. “What in blazes are you talking about?”
    “The wager over the girl,” Rivers said, dropping into the empty chair beside Everett’s. “Last night. Early in the evening. Come, you must remember it.”
    Everett screwed up his face with the exertion of thought, his cheeks hollowing as he drew deeply on the cheroot.
    “I’m afraid I don’t recall any wagers involving girls,” he admitted. “Not last night anyway. What was the chit’s name? Have I had her?”
    “She’s a Di Rossi,” said Rivers, pulling his chair closer to Everett’s. “And no, I can guarantee you haven’t had her in your bed. You’d better remember the wager, because I’m going to accept your terms.”
    That earned Everett’s attention, and he straightened in the chair. “One of those delightfully slatternly Di Rossis? You should have said so in the beginning, you rogue.”
    “Not one of those,” Rivers said with a wave of his hand, banishing all the slatterns in a single, dismissive sweep. “Her name is Lucia. Lucia di Rossi.”
    Everett frowned, considering. “Is she new to the litter?”
    Rivers sighed impatiently. “You remember her, Everett. Fifty blessed guineas.”
    The other man’s face lit with recognition. “The one you swore you could make over into the next Anne Bracegirdle! I recall her well enough now. A small, dreary, pinched creature. You say she’s a Di Rossi, too?”
    “So she swears.” Rivers thought Everett’s estimation was a little harsh. True, he himself had scarcely taken any notice of the girl in the past, but this morning, when she’d stood before him in his parlor and he’d had more time to study her properly, he’d been struck by her…her presence.
    Yes, that’s what it had been. Presence. It was all she had, really. She wasn’t beautiful the way the rest of her family was, but there was a quickness, a lightness, to her that had made it impossible for him to look away. He was certain that with his guidance, education, and better clothes, audiences could be persuaded to feel