Read Regina Scott for Free Online Page A

as he released her. “Allow me to escort you to the drawing room to wait.”
    Mrs. Price tittered a reply and accepted his offered arm. Meredee and Lady Phoebe fell into step behind them. The girl squeezed her arm. “I’m so glad you could join us,” she said, as if her glowing face and bright smile could have given Meredee any doubt. “I think my brother is smitten with you.”
    Meredee missed a step and nearly trod on her hem.“Oh, Lady Phoebe,” she whispered. “You mustn’t say such things.”
    “Why not?” Lady Phoebe peered over at her, suddenly serious. “Most women find my brother irresistible. Don’t you?”
    Meredee eyed his back, so imposing in the tailored coat. His hair was just long enough that wisps brushed the high collar as he walked. How could a man who was known to be so hard have such soft-looking hair? “I hardly know your brother,” she said aloud, cheeks blazing, “so I’m sure I’m in no position to say.”
    Lady Phoebe gave her arm another squeeze as they reached the drawing room. “Then perhaps you can become better acquainted.”
    “Perhaps,” Meredee answered, though she was beginning to believe that the most important thing she could do was to determine who exactly Chase Dearborn, Earl of Allyndale, was.
    Yet try as she might, she simply could not find the monster Algernon insisted on. Lord Allyndale made polite conversation with her stepmother, his face set in firm lines that said he was listening to every bit of nonsense as if to a speech on an important issue in Parliament. He gave equal attention to his sister’s meandering story about shopping for a new pair of gloves. His patience would have been endearing, if Meredee could forget the scowl he’d worn that afternoon at the spa that had made the tall youth flee as if in fear for his life.
    Had he looked at Algernon that way? Would he look at her that way if he knew she was Algernon’s stepsister?
    “Still so unhappy?” he ventured when Lady Phoebe had drawn Mrs. Price over to the spinet to show her some new sheet music. “Do you find Scarborough such a sad place, Miss Price?”
    She could not give him her thoughts. “A little,” she admitted instead. “My father brought me here every summer. I haven’t been back since he died. It doesn’t feel the same.”
    “I am sorry for your loss,” he said quietly.
    She could not stand his kindness. “I’ll see him again someday. Until then, there is much to interest me.”
    “Such as?”
    She glanced up at him. There was that look again, head cocked, blue eyes dark and serious, as if what she had to say was critical to his very existence. The look made her want to be brilliant, if only to gratify his attention. “Good company, new music, the sun on the waves.” She grinned. “And there are always the improving works of Hannah More.”
    “Or Mary Wollstonecraft,” he agreed with a matching grin.
    The butler coughed from the doorway, and everyone looked up. “Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam has arrived, ladies, my lord.”
    Meredee held her smile from long practice, butLady Phoebe gasped as if she hadn’t seen him in years and rushed to tug him into the room. “Oh, Trevor, come meet Miss Meredee Price. She saved my life.”
    “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Price,” he said with a bow. “And this must be your lovely sister.”
    “Very nearly.” Mrs. Price beamed as she joined the group.
    “Again?” Lady Phoebe interrupted with a frown. “You said it was a pleasure to see her again. Do you know her?”
    Meredee glanced at Lord Allyndale. Surely it was his place to explain their meeting yesterday afternoon to his sister. She only wondered why he hadn’t done so sooner. The faintest of pinks tinged his cheeks, as if he’d been caught in an indiscretion. “Sir Trevor and I stopped by the Bell Inn yesterday,” he said to his sister. “Just to be certain Miss Price had not taken ill from her efforts on your behalf.”
    “But why should she take ill?” Lady