A Gentleman and a Scoundrel (The Regency Gentlemen Series) Read Online Free PDF

loveliest.”
    Mr Nicholas Ashworth smiled his handsome smile and moved to brace a hand high against one of the pillars to trap her with his body. She neatly sidestepped him leaving him holding nothing but air.
    “And do you say that to every lady you bring here, Mr Ashworth?”
    He shook his head, smiling, his eyes heavy-lidded with a mixture of drink, desire and expectation. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. The lady gasped as he lifted a hand and allowed his fingertips to trail along the slender column of her throat, downwards over the swell of her collarbone towards the curve of her breast.
    “You tease me, my lady,” he murmured in mock censure.
    She raised a brow. “Do I? By asking you about your other ladies?”
    “You and my other ladies all come out here with me because you all want the same thing.”
    She smiled. “And what is that, sir?”
    “To be made love to,” he whispered. His hand cupped her chin and gently lifted her face upward so that he might look into her eyes. His eyes slid to her lips and Louisa felt her heart skip with expectation. She was going to be kissed at last; properly, soundly, thoroughly kissed.
    “You are so beautiful,” he breathed.
    Stop talking , her mind screamed. I want to, you want to, just do it, please, before I lose my mind.
    “Your lips are sweet and full and red.”
    Lady Louisa rolled her eyes. Oh for God’s sake. Lord Byron he wasn’t.
    “Please, Nicky.”
    He smiled and lowered his mouth to hers and Louisa closed her eyes. His arms tightened around her and he tilted his head to deepen the kiss.
    Barely a second later, two hands grabbed Nicholas by the scruff of the neck and lifted him bodily from the ground. He was flung headfirst down the steps of the folly and through the nearest hedge without any consideration for his dignity or his expensive attire. Dark green glossy leaves clawed at his face and he held out his hands to save himself as his momentum carried him through the shrubbery. He heard his beautiful coat rip at the shoulder and the knees of his spotless white satin breeches were besmirched with mud, the palms of his hands grazed and sore. He blinked, trying to ascertain what had happened and why he was face down in a flower bed with his rear end in the air.
    Lady Louisa stared in disbelief at the man who had so effortlessly spun her free of Nicholas Ashworth’s attentions. She hardly recognised the gentleman before her who looked at her now with such cold disapproval. He was pale with anger, his eyes raking over her figure as if she were nothing but a common trollop. Where the amiable smile of former days? Where the gentle humour in his eyes? Where the special attention she had come to expect from him? Gone; scoured away until nothing at all remained of his habitual good humour, and what was left, was disagreeable in the extreme.
    “What is the meaning of this?” demanded the Duke of Malvern.
    Lady Louisa coloured despite herself. She had to force herself to look at him. She told herself that she did not care. She lifted her chin defiantly and met the cold stare of her noble suitor.
    “The meaning of what, your grace?” she asked in an equally frigid tone.
    “You know very well what. You are not with your party. How came you to leave your aunt’s care? Have you no thought to your reputation or mine for that matter?”
    “Yours?” she asked. “How, pray, does this involve you?”
    “Our names are bound together by the arrangement that exists between us,” he responded angrily. “You must know that your behaviour reflects upon me.”
    The tone of his voice was so utterly disagreeable that it put her forcibly in mind of all the complaints she’d had against him in the last few months and the way that he treated her. Here he was again, sternly lecturing her as if she were a child. It would do him good to realise that he could not order her about as if she were one of his servants. It would do him good to