One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl Page B

immediately reached for a chair and pulled it closer before collapsing into it.
    “Blood loss,” he muttered, gesturing toward the small cut on his forehead.
    “My word, you are dramatic, Viscount.”
    “Why do you keep calling me Viscount?”
    Cynthia huffed. “I know we’ve never been formally introduced, but it is your title, is it not?”
    “Well, my friends call me Lancaster, but you never called me anything but Nick.”
    “You are not Nick anymore.”
    It was only the simple truth, so why did she feel guilty when his face fell? “I suppose I am not,” he murmured. She had to fight the urge to call him Nick and take his hand. In appeasement, she answered his original question.
    “Yes, I was promised to Lord Richmond.”
    “But…why?”
    “My stepfather owed him money. A lot of it. When he could not pay, Richmond proposed a different form of payment.”
    He closed his eyes. “You.”
    “Yes, me. I…did my best to dissuade him. Both of them, actually. It was not the first time my stepfather had tried to marry me off, but none of my normal arguments were effective this time. It became necessary to take drastic measures.”
    His eyelids rose. So did his brows. “Why do I feel as if this version of the story has been scrubbed clean of all but the barest of facts?”
    She shrugged.
    “Mrs. Pell said your father refused you food.”
    “What child hasn’t been put to bed without dinner?”
    “What child,” he ground out, “has been locked in their room and starved?”
    “Melodrama again. My stepfather was never a kind man. I didn’t expect softheartedness from him in the face of ruin.”
    “What did you expect?”
    She shook her head. Her stepfather had behaved in his normal fashion. He wasn’t precisely cruel. He simply did not understand her. What kind of girl would not want to be a countess?
    No, she hadn’t expected anything different from her stepfather. What had surprised her was an entirely different kind of suitor. A kind who took delight in an unwilling bride.
    “How did you escape?”
    Though her mouth burned, she did not let her fingers drift to her lips. No matter how much she rubbed at that spot, the tingle never left it anyway. “My father let me out to visit with my betrothed. Richmond became distracted and I managed to run.”
    Lancaster’s eyes narrowed at her carefully chosen words. He held her gaze for a long moment, but she did not flinch from it. Still, when his eyes dipped lower, she had to fight the urge to turn away. He focused on her mouth, and she didn’t want him looking at the jagged pink scar that marred it even though he couldn’t know the cause.
    “Mrs. Pell said she saw you jump from the cliff. How can that be?”
    Thoughts of her scar and the man who’d caused it disintegrated in a blast of alarm. Mrs. Pell . “Ah…yes. She…I made sure…Someone had to see me jump or they’d think I’d only run off.”
    “But…” He crossed his legs and the dressing robe parted, revealing his knee and calf. She tried not to stare at the golden hairs on his skin. “How could you have orchestrated an unplanned flight so perfectly?”
    “Pardon?” Half of her brain was taking in his small bit of nudity and half of it was screaming that she needed to think .
    “Cynthia, does Mrs. Pell know you are here?”
    “What?” she gasped. “No! Of course not! How…how could she?”
    Lancaster put his foot down and leaned forward to meet her eyes. “This is her home. She lives here.”
    “Well, of course she lives here, but she doesn’t go into the attic.”
    “The attic? ”
    “Yes, the attic. Did you think Mrs. Pell had just invited me in and set me up in one of the guest rooms?”
    “Well…yes.”
    “Don’t be a ninny. I’ve been living up in the attic like a mouse. Speaking of which, it’s late and I’m exhausted.” She started to rise, thinking she could run downstairs and warn Mrs. Pell, but Lancaster was on his feet before she could push off the