Enticing Benedict Cole. Eliza Redgold

      ‘Lord Warley!’ Desperately she tried to extract her fingers, but his grip was too tight.

      He squeezed them tighter. ‘You must allow me to make my addresses. I’m sure your parents will not object.’

      Cameo wrenched her hands away.

      ‘Your addresses?’ Her stomach sank. His intentions were more serious than she’d feared.

      ‘Indeed.’ Putting his fingers together in a steeple, he said, ‘Our families are well connected. You will recall, of course, that your father was good friends with my own, God rest his soul.’

      The late Lord Warley, the current earl’s father, had died while she was still in the schoolroom, studying under a governess with Maud. He’d been dark-haired like his son. But his eyes had been different—kind, although sad. Cameo remembered that.

      ‘My father thought most highly of yours,’ she vouchsafed. If it wasn’t for the family friendship she wouldn’t be forced to associate so closely with him against all her instincts. It made it all very difficult.

      ‘When I inherited Warley Park—you must know that it’s one of the greatest houses in England—I took on a great responsibility. I shall enjoy showing you the estate on your visit. You will be an ornament to it.’ Once more he glanced towards her bare décolletage.

      Cameo wished yet again for a shawl to cover her upper body. She didn’t want to be an ornament to anything, even Warley Park, that great country estate in Sussex. It was even larger than the one belonging to her family in Derbyshire, which George was to eventually inherit.

      ‘It will be wonderful to see the Old Masters at Warley Hall.’ That was true at least. ‘I’m sure I’ll like them. But you may not find you like me. For a start, I’m most attached to painting.’

      His smile became supercilious. ‘You’ll soon outgrow your childish hobbies.’

      ‘I assure you I’ll never outgrow painting,’ she said through gritted teeth. Why was it that women’s passions were considered so insignificant, as though they could easily be put aside for polite society? Did no one understand the passion that drove her?

      Benedict Cole’s face flashed again into her mind.

      He was a man who understood painting.

      And passion.

      Down deep her stomach rippled.

      ‘You’re young.’ Lord Warley licked his lips. ‘There’s nothing you could be sure about at your age.’

      He had only been a few years ahead of George at school. ‘I might be young, but I do know my own mind.’

      ‘I appreciate spirit in a girl.’

      Before Cameo moved he was on his feet. Looming over her, he pressed her backwards, hard, into the wrought-iron chair, banging her head against the trellis.

      No! He meant to kiss her. She couldn’t bear it. Not with the memory of Benedict’s lips still burned on to hers. In a surge of strength she pushed him away.

      Leaping to her feet, she seized her necklace as if it were a talisman. ‘I’d like to go into the ballroom.’

      ‘Yes, of course. The moonlight, your beauty...forgive me.’

      As he took her arm, his eyes did not meet hers. Sickened, Cameo realised he wasn’t sorry at all.

      She’d been right to avoid being alone with him. All her suspicions about him had been right all along.

      Backed up against the trellis, Lord Warley had trapped her like a bird in a cage. Right where he liked a woman to be.