A Family Affair Read Online Free PDF

yank her arm loose, and she knew she was caught; she was too well-mannered to make her effort obvious.
    With a sigh, she turned her head slightly and met his amused golden eyes. He bent his head closer to hers and his breath warmed her skin.
    “As I said, I would be delighted to take you back to your parents.” His smile broadened at her scowl.
    “Thank you, Your Grace, but there is truly no need for you to accompany me.”
    “Truly?”
    Fanny caught herself from rolling her eyes in frustration. “Yes, Your Grace, truly.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why not!”
    She hadn’t meant to shout, but she was more than a little annoyed. He thought it was hilarious, of course, and laughed loudly. All the ladies in the crowd looked ready to faint, and Fanny probably would have been, too, if she had been less aggravated, as the joy in his face made him look so glorious, so radiant, so utterly magnificent…
    “Why, look who the cat dragged in.”
    The intruder bowed his head in an elegant greeting, and Fanny sighed with relief.
    The orchestra started to play more loudly again, forcing the crowd to resume the dance, and Fanny ripped her arm loose to take a step closer to the stylish man before her. Not as perfectly beautiful as Devlin, more of a big and brawny savage, yet he was somehow so elegantly graceful.
    “Rake.” Devlin smiled toward his friend with pleasure. “How nice to see you. I didn’t know you were in town, or else I would have called upon you.”
    “Well, I normally don’t attend the early season. All the mamas, you know. But this little one wanted me to come, and who am I to tell her no.”
    Devlin looked from Rake to Fanny and back again, and she could easily read his mind as all the laughter left his face and he became cold and rigid. Well, she thought, it probably was an easy mistake when you were a libertine and had no close female relatives to keep you informed.
    It vexed her a little that he so easily managed to think of her as a potential mistress, but mostly she found it hilarious, and she couldn’t help but tease him a little.
    She took another step toward Rake and laid a hand on his arm while batting her eyelashes at him.
    “You are so good to me,” she said with a husky voice, and one of Rake’s eyebrows edged up.
    “I am?” he answered, a bit uncertain of what she was up to. That she would play at being his mistress didn’t occur to him, as in his world Fanny was a little innocent girl who didn’t know anything about things like adultery and kept ladies.
    All her uncles thought the same, and her mother had had a hell of a time getting them to allow her departure for London and her debutante season; she was much too young, they said. Like her father, they all thought of her as eight, not eighteen.
    Thank God her Grand-Papa Hannibal had put his foot down and sent her along with her mother, or else she would probably have been at least thirty before they thought her ready for London.
    So they all had followed her to London, to keep an eye on her, everyone but Grand-Papa Hannibal and her Uncle Charles, who preferred to spend his time in his church.
    Her mother had rolled her eyes so many times her father had told her to stop before she had to live with endlessly rolling eyes.
    But Devlin knew what she meant, and she could see how he withdrew. All the warmth that moments earlier had washed over her when he teased her was suddenly nowhere to be seen, and she knew if she didn’t tell him the truth now she would never have a chance to come near the real Devlin again.
    But the question was, did she want to know him?
    Her mind said no, he was everything she didn’t want in a husband—too beautiful and too adored, a true libertine from top to toe.
    But something in her heart said yes. Maybe it was the little girl who finally had him close again.
    Fanny didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
    It was Devlin Ross and, courting Charmaine or not, he made her whole body react, and she wanted to know what it