The Greatest Lover in All England by Christina Dodd Page A

looked furious. Furious! His blond brows met over his nose, his pinched nostrils turned white, and his full lips had thinned into a single line. When she stepped from the stage, he would be on her like mold on week-old bread. She had to warn Sir Danny. She had to tell him.
    Again she tried to free her hand from Ludovic, but he hung on, twisting her fingers until it turned painful, and she glanced at him.
    He smiled, but not at her. He watched Tony as closely as Tony had watched her. Tony rose from the bench in a fluid motion, flexed his shoulders, placed his hand on the knife at his belt. Ludovic grinned and copied the gesture. Laughter rippled from the aristocrats who observed the exchange, and Rosie used the distraction to jerk her hand free at last.
    Ludovic turned to her with a hiss, but Sir Danny led her away and assisted her off the stage. He had to. Her knees were shaking so badly she feared a fall. As always, the troupe had gathered at the back of the scaffolding, but Sir Danny didn’t pause for their accolades, and the funereal atmosphere confirmed Rosie’s worst fears—she had been dreadful. Worse than dreadful. Worse than customary.
    She hurried after Sir Danny as he strode toward the manor.
    A muscle twitched in Sir Danny’s cheek. He triedtwice to speak, and finally snapped, “What happened?”
    â€œI just”—Tony’s accusatory gaze swam through her consciousness—“I panicked, I suppose.”
    Sir Danny walked faster, threshing the grass with each kick of his feet. “But why?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She did know, at least a little, but she didn’t want to explain. Sir Danny complained that she feared emotion, and she did. She feared that if she let it loose, even on the stage, it would prove stronger than her resolve, and it would possess her. And Sir Danny had been watching her since the moment their wagons crossed the boundary of the rolling estate, watching as if he expected just such an outburst.
    What knowledge told him of the emotions that simmered within her and threatened to burst forth? Even the trauma of her first kiss paled beside her reaction to this property, this manor, this place . Not wanting to give too much away, she confessed, “Odyssey Manor makes me shudder.”
    â€œOdyssey Manor?” Sir Danny stopped and gazed around him. “But it’s beautiful.”
    Reluctantly, she, too, looked about her. The lawn had been scythed at the end of summer, and it extended around the manor in a swirl of dry gold and pale green. Oaks, both large and small, were scattered randomly to provide shade in the summer, and off to the side of the manor rose the hedge which fenced the formal garden.
    A spring day, a meal spread on a cloth, a laughing deep-voiced man. Garlic sausage, crushed grass, lilac blossoms. Bark scraped her hands, a hand steadied her as she climbed .
    Catch me, Dada. Catch me when I jump .
    â€œWhere are you, Rosie?” Sir Danny asked.
    His voice jerked her back to the moment. “Here. I’m here.” Her heart hurt, and she tried to ease the ache withthe massage of her palm on her chest. “This place bothers me because of our plan to blackmail Sir Anthony Rycliffe, I suppose. Or maybe I’m having a premonition.”
    â€œYou’ve never had one before.” The chill in Sir Danny’s voice matched the chill of the wind.
    â€œThis place seems familiar.”
    Sir Danny visibly thawed. “Familiar?”
    â€œLike I’ve been here before.” She tried to laugh, but instead she looked at the manor, her gaze drawn to the harmony of stone and glass. “We haven’t been here before, have we?”
    â€œThe troupe has never been here before.” He stooped until he came into her line of vision. “Of course not. How could our plan work if we’d been here before?”
    She shook off the eerie sense of intimacy created by the garden, the house, and her own