A Lady's Lesson in Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page B

another tack. ‘She’s too young for marriage.’
    He cocked his head to one side, watching Almeria laugh merrily at something Alan Folk said. ‘Not if she chooses the right man.’
    That didn’t help, either.
    ‘Just because you didn’t like Timothy’s kisses, there is no reason to suppose she will have the same experience with her husband.’ He smiled. ‘It is also no reason for you to decide never to remarry.’
    She stiffened, suddenly furious. ‘I don’t want to marry again, and I shan’t, and that’s that.’ She picked up her needle again and set the first stitch of a rose.
    ‘Then you had better have a passionate affair,’ he murmured.
    ‘I certainly will not!’ She stabbed the needle in and out, in and out.
    ‘Or at least some more kisses. Deeper ones.’
    ‘Hush!’ She glanced about, but no one was close enough to hear him.
    ‘Otherwise, you will moulder away into nothing,’ he said. ‘What a pity that would be.’
    No, what a pity she couldn’t storm away and never see him again before she said—or did—something she would regret. She got back to work on what would be a very perfect, very cultivated rose. She would tame the wilderness of her embroidery if it meant unpicking and stitching it over and over again.
    ‘Set an example for Miss Dane by conquering your fear, not by being a Puritan,’ he said.
    * * *
    Frances paled so dramatically that he thought she might faint, reminding him unhappily of the day he’d quarrelled with Timothy, when she’d been so sad and wan.... Damn it, what had he done wrong now?
    He seated himself next to her. He’d never been known for tact. In fact, his tactless handling of Timothy had proven fatal. ‘Are you unwell, Mrs. Burdett?’
    ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she said, but she gazed fixedly at her needlework, and her hand trembled as she set the next stitch. ‘Why should you think I’m afraid? I’m not! ’ What a lie. ‘And it’s none of your business anyway!’
    ‘I don’t mean to distress you. Only to…’ He couldn’t say he wanted to help her. That came close to revealing that he knew too much. She was already beginning to ask questions he couldn’t answer.
    Ah. Timothy had probably called her a Puritan because she didn’t enjoy being bedded. Idiot, he thought, mentally cursing his dead friend, who also hadn’t realized that many whores only pretended to enjoy themselves. He’d been both furious and mortified when Cam had explained this to him.
    ‘To what?’ She scowled at him with hot, uneasy eyes.
    To prove to her that Timothy had been wrong. He couldn’t say that. To show her what a passionate woman she truly was. He couldn’t say that, either.
    He wished he could tell her everything. She was so comfortable and easy to talk to—but she wouldn’t be if he blurted out the truth.
    Instead of answering, he stood. ‘I want to show you something.’ He put out an imperative hand.
    ‘What?’ she demanded, still suspicious.
    ‘Something my great-great-grandmother embroidered,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find it interesting.’
    She plucked at her stitchery with agitated fingers. ‘Damnation,’ she muttered under her breath. She wove her needle into the fabric by the edge of the frame and stood, as well.
    ‘It’s hardly that bad, is it?’ he murmured, holding the drawing room door open for her. ‘At the very worst I’ll drag you under the mistletoe and poke my tongue in your mouth.’
    ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said.
    ‘Good, because you’re not meant to be a Puritan.’
    * * *
    ‘I’m not a Puritan,’ she snapped. She shouldn’t have reacted so strongly, but that word had brought back the last horrid night with Timothy and all the shame and misery she’d kept to herself for the whole past year.
    ‘That’s what I just said.’ The marquis lit one of the oil lamps that stood on a side table in the Great Hall. ‘So why not have some fun?’
    She trod beside him up the wide staircase, trying to decide