A Fallen Woman by Kate Harper Page A

Mama said you were not to read such
things.’
    ‘It is far more interesting than the stuff I am supposed to read,’
Liza returned promptly. ‘Are you really all right?’
    ‘ I am indeed. Do not take it into your head that I have a
problem. I am perfectly content.’
    Liza gave
her a look, blue eyes holding an expression that was startlingly
like Charlotte’s. How tiresome it was, having a pair of sisters
that were so protective and far too perceptive. At nine (almost
ten, it must be admitted), Liza had all the observational skills of
a female twice her age, even if she did lack the decorum not to
give voice to what she saw. The next few days would become even
more fraught if the youngest of the Sheridan children took it into
her head to become Rachel’s protector. Chaos was likely to
ensue.
    ‘ Do you like the earl?’ Liza demanded abruptly, seguing in an
unexpected direction.
    The
abruptness of the question made Rachel glance towards Worsley who
happened to be looking at her. Their eyes met before he turned
abruptly back to her father, with whom he had been engaged in
conversation.
    ‘ He appears perfectly amiable,’ Rachel said, slightly shaken by
the expression she had seen in those dark grey eyes. She wasn’t
sure what his look had actually held. She wasn’t sure that she
wanted to know, either.
    ‘ Have you met him before?’
    Rachel glanced
at her sister. ‘We met in London some years ago,’ she admitted
cautiously. As young as she was, Liza had not been privy to the
story that lay behind Rachel’s disgrace, although the entire
household suspected she knew more than she should. Sometimes it was
best not to ask.
    ‘ I thought he had met you,’ her sister’s tone suggested one
mystery had been solved.
    ‘ Why?’ Rachel asked uneasily. ‘Why should you think
so?’
    ‘ The way he looks at you.’
    The way he looks at me? I had not thought that he had
looked at me at a ll. With that one glance I surprised out of him, he has
been entirely fixed on anything other than this part of the
room.
    ‘ I am sure that you are imagining it,’ she said, having decided
not to get Liza to interpret what she had thought she’d seen.
Instinct told Rachel it was better she did not know. ‘We did not
know each other very well at all.’
    For a
moment it seemed that Liza might respond but instead she was
distracted by the arrival of their brother George and his wife,
Lydia. ‘George!’ she said, jumping to her feet and surging
forward.
    Rachel
was grateful for the reprieve. She had not cared for the turn the
conversation had taken and could only hope that Liza would be too
distracted by the events of the coming days to revisit a subject
that should definitely not be explored further. Rachel had no idea
how Worsley looked at her – although she’d had a hint of it when
their eyes had so briefly locked together – and was eager to have
it remain so. She must have hurt him deeply when she had rejected
him, if he still carried the scar so transparently. She would
attempt an apology if the right opportunity presented itself. That
was all she could do.
    Happily the arrival of George, the second eldest of the Sheridan
children, proved a pleasant diversion and any dark undertones
Rachel had thought she detected entirely vanished. Adam and
Charlotte’s infectious good mood kept the conversation fizzing
along nicely, while Liza buzzed between people, delighted by to be
reunited with George. He and Lydia only lived ten miles away and
were frequent visitors but their arrival – and discussion of the
forthcoming wedding – made for a merry gathering.
    The final guests, James and Charity, arrived an hour before dinner
and the party was complete. Charity swept into the parlor, her pale
blue eyes moving from one person to the next as if trying to access
what she might have missed.
    ‘ James!’ Lady Sheridan said warmly, rising to her feet and
coming forward. ‘And Charity. How lovely that you are here before
dinner. We