My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(16)

Your blood chills as Manvers’s cold little laugh fills the night air. You take one step farther, and the moment you do, his head turns, slow and steady, like a wicked eel. Something smells strange suddenly. Something smells wrong.

“No one loves a child as someone who should have been a father, I say!” Manvers speaks to you with blank eyes. You thrill with fear, and identify the strange scent that has vexed you—smoke.

“What have you done, Manvers?” you ask, your even voice betraying nothing of your fears. “What have you done?”

“What I should have done long ago,” he answers with a simple, horrifying smile. “Burn this place to the ground.”





Uh-oh. Turn to this page.





“I see that you have something of a rapport with my bastard half brother?” Cad smirks. “It must be very disappointing, to go from having hooked a noble to having designs upon a have-not in the space of just one evening.”

“I have no hooks and no designs upon your brother,” you say defiantly.

“Is that so?” murmurs Cad. To your disappointment, your body is roaring at the sinewy length of him pressed against you. “Does dear Benny know that?” You look up to find Benedict staring daggers at you. You stare daggers right back and turn again to Cad.

“What he thinks is of no matter to me,” you say as primly as you can manage. “For I am more interested in what is about with you…It must have been very gratifying to find yourself the heir to a fortune so suddenly. How did you discover the truth? Was it known to you for long, or have you just found out yourself?”

“What does that matter?” he whispers, clearly suspicious.

“Oh, nothing,” you say coquettishly. “I am just interested in what you have to say.”

Cad moves even closer. You realize, too late, that you might be in over your head.

“Well, what I say is that I mean to have you!” he hisses. He grabs your wrist and leans in closer still.

“I would never marry you!” You struggle to escape his grasp.

“Oh, do not mistake me, sweeting,” he jeers. “I want your honor, not your hand. I have no wish to marry. Bother dear brother Benny for all that, if you have it in you to pine for a stuffed-shirt pauper!”

He raises the hand not holding your wrist in a vicelike grip and strokes your face. You recoil at his touch, but Cad continues, undeterred.

“Still, a sweet little chit like you could do worse than to be the kept woman of a man like me. Rich. Well-stationed. Legitimate. So hungry and so satisfying in all ways that matter.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a familiar dark figure stalking purposefully toward you. Benedict’s silver-gray eyes blaze with a mix of outrage and what looks oddly like concern.

“Cad…” Benedict’s voice is a low warning.

“Not now, Benny,” Cad sneers. “This lovely young lady and I are having an—AARGH!”

Suddenly, Cad is doubled over in pain, for you have taken the opportunity of his distraction to inflict deadly damage to his iron-hard manhood with your knee.

“Oops.”

Benedict stares openmouthed as you gather your skirts with exaggerated modesty and step around his fallen half brother. You cannot resist turning and raising an eyebrow to that handsome face—the one that causes your foolish loins to ache.

“Shocked, Sir Benedict?” you say as confidently as possible.

“No. I’m…impressed.”

You are startled out of your triumph. This will not do at all. Benedict seems to agree, for his expression turns uncharacteristically shaken.

Never mind that, nor the fact that you would very much like to brush the dark locks off of that beautiful, dumbfounded face. You have work to do. Squaring your shoulders, you stalk primly out of the room…and hear the sound of a young girl sobbing down the corridor.





You really have no choice here, for intrigue is afoot! Follow those sobs and turn to this page.





Lady Craven hobbles up the steps of the exquisite London manse belonging to Lady Evangeline Youngblood, her niece. An extremely rich widow, Lady Evangeline is patroness of the Society for the Protection of Widows and Orphans of the War—a position that does a great deal to quell the unkind whispers about her scandalous behavior.

You have met Lady Evangeline only a few times and were intimidated by her beauty and elegance. Still, you cannot help but like her, for she is warm, witty, and one of the few people who can get Lady Craven to behave herself (as the old witch relies on her for the occasional handout). It is for this reason that you are relieved when she swoops in almost immediately, settles Lady Craven upon a chair, and leads you by the arm around the ballroom.

“I must say, I’m impressed,” whispers Lady Evangeline, her sapphire eyes flashing with humor and sympathy as you make your escape. “For you have lasted far longer than any of Aunt Aurelia’s other companions. You must have nerves of steel, my dear.”

You start to protest, but Lady Evangeline shushes you with a hint of a smile playing about her lush pink mouth.

“Don’t worry, there is no need to be polite. Not one member of this godforsaken family is unaware of my aunt’s, ahem, singular nature. Why, even her son barely speaks to her, and he is certainly someone who does not intimidate easily. Have you met him?”