A Sense of Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

a wary eye on a stray, wet dog.
    Points to her for perception. Damn right, he bore vigilant watching. As did she.
    After her guilty start, The Ravishing Miss Burke seemed to give way to a rather thorough, wide-eyed curiosity. Her dark eyes scanned over him, as if she were examining him for flaws in his confirmation, like a horse at a country fair. She was, in that moment, every bit the scientist Emily had thought her, noting his characteristics, cataloging his individuality, if only as a means to distinguish him from the myriad of other sandy-haired English gentlemen standing about. So determined and serious. And ink stained. And flushed and lovely.
    Not at all as he had expected.
    “What are you doing here?” He wondered how had she planned their encounter, when he had chosen to go to the library only on the spur of the moment.
    Her dark eyes became wider, if possible. “Reading.”
    Her voice was so low and soft, tentative even, he had to turn his head slightly to catch the words. A small, reasonable feminine voice. His own blunt demands sounded crass in comparison.
    All he had seen, when he had looked across the ballroom, was a woman he wanted to crush and humiliate. But from less than two feet away, he could hear the uneven, fragmented cadence of her breathing and smell the beguiling scent that rose off her. Up close, the combined effect of her beauty was all the more stunning for the strength of personality it revealed. She was the wondrous girl of Emily’s letters. The girl radiated wonder and intelligence. And something even more dangerous. Innocence wreathed her the way incense clung to a nun.
    Del backed away, fumbling for the door. He had to get away from her, he had to think things through before anything happened, before they were caught in a compromising situation. He wanted to ruin Celia Burke, yes, but he did not want to spend the rest of his life married to her.
    She shot out her hand to forestall him. “Forgive me, you must be Viscount Darling.”
    He moved away before she could reach him. “ Must? ” He drew himself up to his full height, for the haughty effect, and to keep from being touched by her. And to keep from inhaling any more of her scent, or feeling the intensity of her regard.
    She seemed not to notice anything he did. Her eyes continued to search his face. “You are Viscount Darling, are you not? I should introduce myself. My name is Celia Burke and I was at school with your sister, dear Emily. How strange you should come when I was just this moment thinking of her.”
    He reacted before he could control himself. His head reeled back as if he’d been slapped. Her words had been a blow. How dare she even pronounce Emily’s name?
    “Miss Burke,” he managed. His voice sounded cold and abrupt even to his own ears. He had nothing of his usual, lethal brand of charm, he had nothing of the self-possession with which he had originally started his ludicrous passage across the ballroom towards her.
    “I know it is not done, sir, as we have not been introduced,” she continued on, “but I could not let you pass without giving you my deepest, most heartfelt condolences.”
    Every sound, every sensation faded and there was only her voice, soft and low, and her words. Condolences had been few, and only from his closest friends. Even his family could not bear to speak of his sister’s death. His father had seen to it that Emily had not been declared a suicide, but her death had nevertheless been hushed up. No one had spoken of her, and no one had approached him in the intervening months with anything like condolence.
    And yet this betrayer presumed to speak to his pain. It was all he could do to stand it. “We have not been introduced.” His brain was beginning to work but so was his uneven temper.
    “No, sir. I do apologize for my impetuous behavior but I felt I could not let you pass unnoticed. I am Miss Burke, Celia Burke, and I was a great friend of your late sister.”
    “Ah, yes, The