A Fool Again Read Online Free PDF

he said, still watching her.
    â€œOh?” Try as she might, she couldn’t think what to say to that. “How nice for you.”
    â€œI plan to marry,” he said in a conversational kind of voice. “Now that I am able to support a wife and children.”
    â€œAn excellent idea! I can introduce you to some lovely young women.” Genevieve suddenly realized what was happening. Tobias had made his fortune, and now he wished to ameliorate for his dreadful behavior seven years ago. He intended to use her to assuage his conscience, but unfortunately she wasn’t available. Genevieve had to bite her lip to keep back a smile. “Truly,” she added, “I have made a number of friends and I shall introduce you.”
    â€œBut I already know you,” he said softly. Suddenly he was sitting next to her, rather than across from her. “Don’t I, Genevieve? Already know you, I mean?”
    She colored and drew back. “There’s no need to be—to be saucy!” she snapped.
    â€œIt was a mere statement of fact,” he told her, and something in his eyes made a glimmer of shameless memory stir in her mind.
    â€œLord Felton and I are likely to be married,” she said quickly.
    â€œLikely?” Not only was he sitting entirely too close to her but he had started stroking the bare skin of her arm with one finger. “What a very odd way of expressing your betrothal. There is a betrothal, isn’t there, Genevieve? After all, Felton kissed you before an extremely interested audience. The whole theater, as a matter of fact.”
    She scowled and then realized exactly what to say. “As you well know, sir,” she said haughtily, “one needn’t be formally betrothed in order to know each other.”
    The finger stopped for a second and then continued. “True enough.” She couldn’t read his eyes. Even with four lamps burning in the carriage, his face was in shadow.
    His hand curled around her arm. She shivered instinctively. But when she turned to pull her pelisse over her shoulders, he stopped her.
    â€œSir!” she protested.
    â€œYou didn’t call me ‘sir’ last time we met.” His eyes burned into hers. A lock of hair had fallen over his brow. Goodness, he was handsome. It was nice to think that, if nothing else, she had chosen so well back when she was a mere lass.
    She opened her mouth to answer, but he was there. Those hands were lightning quick, for being so large. One tipped up her chin and then his mouth closed on hers before she could even squeak. Tobias kissed with the same boisterous enthusiasm he had seven years before. He invaded her mouth with the impetuous wildness that had led to her—to her—
    Down the years of memory, he smelled just the same: a rough, wild, Tobias smell of the outdoors, of a wild boy now a man, of a devil-may-care freedom. His touch brought back memories of all the days she’d walked sedately into the village beside her governess, hoping for a glimpse of the wild Darby twins.
    So, just for a moment, and only because of those memories, she kissed him back, let their tongues dance together in a moment’s reckless foolishness before she wrenched herself away. “What on earth are you doing?” she gasped, thinking that there really ought to be more indignation in her tone.
    â€œShall I demonstrate again?” he asked, humor dancing in his eyes.
    â€œWhat?” she said, her mind foggy. One swift movement later, she found herself in his lap, sitting in the circle of his arms, and he was tasting her again. Her head fell back against his shoulder without a rational protest. And this time, sheltered in the circle of his arms, his mouth moving roughly over hers, her arm clutching tight around his neck, she didn’t even remember about indignation. Their tongues tangled to the beat of her heart. He was the one who stopped the kiss, his mouth tracing a smoldering