The Rules of Seduction Read Online Free Page A

am not being silly. I am being practical. Nor will I force Timothy to say the words that put me out.”
    “Tell her she does not have to go, Tim. She is so sensible that she will help, not be a burden. He does not want you to leave us, Alexia.”
    Timothy did not respond. He still would not look at her.
    “Timothy,” Roselyn cried in admonishment.
    “It will be all I can do to keep the two of you, Rose.” He finally turned to Alexia. “I am very sorry.”
    Alexia forced a trembling smile and left the library. She closed the door on Irene’s and Roselyn’s weeping and Timothy’s embarrassment. She hurried up to her bedchamber, cursing with every step the man responsible for this tragedy.
    Hayden Rothwell was a scoundrel. A monster. He was one of those men who lived in luxury and destroyed lives on a whim. He did not have to remove those deposits all at once. He had no heart and no soul and trampled people under his boot if it suited him. He was as hard and cold as he looked, and she hated him.
    She threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. She poured venom on Rothwell while she wept into the feathers. The panic coursed all through her now.
    Ruined.
She could not believe she was enduring this again. Her father had been ruined two years before he died. His legacy had been much diminished as a result. Most likely that was why she had not been taken in by his heir. Fate had now played a cruel joke on her, making her relive the worry and fear.
    She groped for control. She had wondered sometimes what she would do if she found herself in this situation. She had always known it could happen. She poked through her misery to the calculations she made on those terrible nights when her precarious existence loomed in the dark.
    She could possibly become a governess, if she could get references. She had the breeding and education for it, although the life was a dreadful one.
    She could also seek work in a milliner’s shop. She possessed a knack with hats and enjoyed making them. Working in such a shop would be the final humiliation, however. She was not born to such things, even if the idea held more appeal than being shut in night and day caring for another woman’s child.
    She might also marry, although at present there were no suitors. She had never even hoped for one after Benjamin. He lived in her heart and always would. The girl who survived, hidden in her soul, loathed the notion of a loveless match made only to ensure security. Having tasted great love, such a marriage would be horrible. However, with neither beauty nor a fortune to entice a man, marriage was one practical compromise that she did not expect to face.
    Enumerating her options gave her some heart, even if it was a sickening sort of confidence. She had twenty pounds a year and would not starve. She could make a future for herself if she ate her pride. As it happened, she had a lot of practice in doing that.
    She gazed around her room at the furniture showing dimly in the lamp’s light. It was not a big room. It lacked the luxurious fabrics of Irene’s and Roselyn’s and the new chairs and beds they had purchased last year too. But it was her room and had been her home since Tim moved them here from Cheapside right after Ben sailed to Greece four years ago.
    She closed her eyes and wondered how long it would be before Hayden Rothwell threw her out onto the street.
             
    Three mornings later Alexia sat in the breakfast room, reading the advertisements in the
Times
. The house quaked with silence. Servants barely made any noise, but their absence was noticeable. Only Falkner remained while he sought another appropriate situation. She could hear him in the dining room, packing the china that Timothy had sold yesterday.
    Very little of the luxuries purchased over the last few years would return to Oxfordshire with her cousins. Rothwell would get the furnishings, and everything else would be sold. Right now men were in the