Anything but a Gentleman by Amanda Grange Page B

leading somewhere. But where, she could not guess.
    His manner, too, made her feel uneasy, although she could not think why. He was perfectly polite – charming, even – but there was something smooth about him, something uncomfortable and unnerving. If she had not been in the middle of eating a pasty she would have excused herself and returned to the dancing. As it was, she had no choice but to remain.
    ‘Have you any brothers or sisters, Miss Travis?’ he asked.
    He gave her a reassuring smile, but somehow it had the opposite effect and she felt her skin prickle.
    ‘One. A brother.’ She spoke unwillingly. She did not know why, but somehow she did not want this man to know about her family.
    ‘Ah. You are fortunate. Me, I have no family. It must be a great comfort to have a brother. He is here tonight?’
    ‘No.’ Marianne’s answer was brief.
    ‘A pity. I would have liked to have had the honour of meeting him. He is in London, perhaps?’
    ‘I – yes.’ Marianne frowned. She did not actually know where Kit was, and she wondered why she had just lied. She was usually a very truthful person, but somehow she didn’t want to tell this man anything about her brother.
    ‘He is there long?’
    The questions, whilst trivial, seemed pointed, and Marianne had just decided that she would excuse herself, no matter how odd it may seem, when Lord Ravensford entered the room.
    She felt a tide of relief wash over her.
    Lord Ravensford had his own depths but somehow they were intriguing rather than murky, like Mr Windham’s.
    ‘Ah! There you are, Miss Travis,’ he said, going over to Marianne. ‘I have been looking for you everywhere. You have not forgotten your promise to dance the minuet with me, I hope?’
    And without giving Marianne the chance to object he took her plate from her, put it down on the table, and steered her out of the room.
    The tension in his hand conveyed itself to her through her long glove. She could not deny the fact that she was  grateful to him for rescuing her from Mr Windham, but even so she did not take kindly to being treated in such a way. She was about to wrest her arm free when he opened one of the small doors leading off from the hall, and to her surprise he steered her into a small room. Because she had visited the house many times she knew, even before she entered the room, that it was Mr Cosgrove’s study, but she suspected that Lord Ravensford had simply picked a door at random.
    He dropped her arm, but before she could speak he said curtly, ‘I want you to keep away from Windham, Marianne. Do you understand?’
    He had shed his careless air like a sloughed skin, and the effect was electrifying. Marianne could not protest at his use of her name, she could not even remember that she ought to protest, because the atmosphere had become charged with a force so powerful it drove all normal considerations from her mind. Instead of railing against him she found herself fighting a flood of new and unwanted images that had invaded her mind: images of him kissing her hands before pulling her into his arms and kissing her passionately on the lips.
    She stood stock still for a moment, overcome by the highly charged atmosphere and her own ungovernable imagination. Where had such images come from? And how had they taken control of her? She shook her head angrily, driving the pictures away. This man had taken charge of her; had steered her out of one room and into another; had told her what she could and could not do, had laid down the law by telling her who she could and could not speak to, and all she could do was imagine herself in his arms?
    ‘I will decide who I talk to,’ she said, quickly regaining control of herself and redirecting the anger she had built up against herself towards him. ‘If I choose to speak to Mr Windham I will do so. Perhaps it is your custom to cut people you dislike, but it is not mine.’ She ignored the part of her that said she had been about to do exactly