A Much Compromised Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

seeing what kind of son he’d sired. He could do
anything he pleased.
    And he was not, he thought with gritted
teeth, going to listen to the laughter of those ghosts from his
past; those things he could not do were things he chose not to. And
that was that.
    He turned his mind from such ancient losses,
but those shadows softened his mood. She did not know him. And he
should not be so angry with her for being ignorant. Indeed, it was
part of her charm that she did not know him well enough to be
cautious enough around him.
    “You may apologize now, my sweets,” he said,
trying hard to soften his tone. Reaching up, he brushed a dark curl
from her cheek. “And then we shall move on to more pleasant
things.”
    St. Albans’s finger brushed across her skin,
warm and tender. And Glynis’s fear vanished like a fire doused by
sand. She struggled to find the armor of her anger, but too many
emotions had buffeted her tonight. Too much fear, too much of
nerves strung tight, too much scorn. She just wanted it over.
Fatigue filled her bones and weighed her soul, and she knew
suddenly that she was done fighting her own fate.
    She had thought mention of marriage might
make him lose interest. He had not. She had thought if she gave him
a shrewish tongue that would put him off. It had not. And she saw
now that she would have to pay the price for the mistake of putting
herself into his path.
    “Oh, just have done with it,” she told him.
She shut her eyes tight and turned her face to him, prepared to
endure his kiss, and whatever would follow. He would take what he
wanted from her, and she would just have to hope that no child came
from this. If it did, she would deal with that, too. She had dealt
with so much already in life. What was one more set of burdens?
    Staring at the woman before him, the image
that St. Albans had tried to blot out for the past six months rose
again. The vision flashed in his mind of a golden-haired beauty—the
only woman he had ever allowed to escape. And that good deed had
done nothing but torment him. What idiot had ever said that virtue
was a reward? It had become a blasted curse.
    For six months, he had done his best to
obliterate the uncomfortable feelings which that one act had
stirred within him. So what if that lady had seemed to find love
with another. Love never lasted. And that lady and her lord were
merely fools, living in a delusion that would shatter someday. Of
course, they had made London a boring place to be, for at any
moment the pair of them might turn up to remind him that he had
given into that idiotic impulse; he had told that lady the truth
instead of seducing her into staying with him.
    His reward had been nothing but a restless
unease that he could not shake.
    Ah, those fools would be the ones who someday
regretted their folly. But he was bloody well not going to allow
the sight of them—happy as only the besotted can be—to ruin his
pleasure.
    Which was why he was not in London.
    Taking his Gypsy’s chin in his fingers, he
tilted her face up. This one, he would not let go. Not even if she
turned to wood in his arms. He had learned better of himself. He
would take what she offered, and enjoy it, and he would bloody make
her enjoy it as well.
    He began to lower his lips towards hers, but
he stopped when his mouth hovered a breath from hers.
    Staring down at her closed eyes, he told her,
“I mean to have you no matter what.”
    He felt her chin move as her throat
contracted, and she said, “So have done. And then I will go.”
    “What if I don’t want to let you go
after?”
    Her eyes opened then, wide and alarmed. He
smiled. Ah, at last. Better to have her scratching like a wild cat
than stiff with martyred submission.
    However, the alarm vanished from her eyes,
and she smiled. His senses sharpened with warning. What was she
planning now? He waited, relief washing through him that she was no
blond, blue-eyed innocent. Heaven and Hades save him from such
ladies ever again. Far