The Handmaiden's Necklace Read Online Free Page B

him and he or she would be it.
    She played the game for a while, dancing away, bolting forward and finally tagging young Terry. Waving at the children, she gave them a last warm smile and made her way deeper into the garden.
    She didn’t hear the footfalls approaching behind her until it was too late. She knew who it was before she turned. Still, she couldn’t help the gasp of surprise as she stared up into Rafe’s handsome face.
    “Good afternoon, Danielle.”
    Her heartbeat thundered. Anger made rosy circles appear in her cheeks. She turned away, rudely ignored him, caught the look of shock that appeared on his face, and simply started walking.
    But the Duke of Sheffield wasn’t used to being ignored, and she felt the pressure of his fingers as they wrapped around her arm. His grip was firm enough to stop her forward motion and turn her around to face him.
    “I said good afternoon. I expect at least a civil reply.”
    She clamped down on her temper, told herself not to let him bait her. “Excuse me. I believe my aunt is calling.”
    But he didn’t let go of her arm. “I think your aunt is otherwise engaged at the moment. Which means you have time to greet an old friend.”
    Her fine thread of control stretched to the breaking point and then completely snapped. “You are no friend of mine, Rafe Saunders. You are, in fact, the last man on earth I would think to call a friend.”
    Rafe’s jaw hardened. “Is that so? If not a friend, then how, may I ask, should I think of you?”
    She lifted her chin, the knot of anger in her stomach almost painful. “You may think of me as the biggest fool you have ever met. A woman foolish enough to trust a man like you. Stupid enough to fall in love with you, Rafael.”
    She started walking, but Rafe’s tall figure stepped into the path of her escape. His jaw was set, his intense blue eyes diamond hard.
    “I believe it was you, my dear, I found with one of my closest friends. You who invited Oliver Randall into your bed, under my very nose.”
    “And it was you who was eager to believe your friend’s lies instead of the truth!”
    “You betrayed me, Danielle. Or perhaps you have forgot.”
    Dani looked up at him, her eyes snapping with fire. “No,Rafael. It was you who betrayed me. If you had loved me, trusted me, you would have known I was telling you the truth.” She gave him a thin, bitter smile. “On second thought, as I think of it, certainly it is you who are the fool.”
    Rafe’s whole body vibrated with anger.
    Good, she thought. She hated the bland, uninteresting man he had become, so cool and unaffected. The sort of man she wouldn’t have found the least bit attractive.
    “You have the nerve to stand there and claim you are innocent of the affair?”
    “I told you that the moment you stepped into my bedchamber. The events of that night have not changed.”
    “You were in bed with the man!”
    “I didn’t even know he was there—as I told you that night! Now, get out of my way, Rafael.”
    Fury burned in his cold blue eyes but she didn’t care. She started walking again and this time Rafe made no move to stop her.
    She was surprised he had approached her in the first place. They hadn’t spoken since the night he had walked into her bedchamber five years ago and found Oliver Randall lying naked in her bed.
    She had tried then to tell him that Oliver was playing some kind of cruel, terrible joke, that nothing had happened between them, that she had been sleeping until Rafe had walked into the room and startled her awake.
    But for reasons she still didn’t understand, Oliver had set out to destroy the love Rafael had felt for her—or at least said he felt—and the man had brutally succeeded.
    Rafe hadn’t listened to her that night, nor responded to any of the dozen letters she sent him, begging him to hearher side of the story, pleading with him to believe she was telling him the truth.
    As word of the scandal began to leak out, he never once defended