A Taste of Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page A

feel too tight?
    Arend sent her a quizzing look but merely continued, “I have only two names left on my list: the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of Wentworth.”
    Last month the Libertine Scholars had learned that the woman who was set upon destroying them had worked as a high-priced courtesan in Paris. Apparently she had caught the fancy of an English earl, left the life of prostitution in France, hidden her tracks well, and with her earl returned to England as a woman of quality he’d met on the continent. They had no idea if she was still with the earl or if he had married her, but they thought she’d hardly leave the successful business she’d built up in Paris for anything less than marriage, and they had no other leads.
    They had drawn up a list of more than a hundred English earls and then had whittled it down to sixty who had wives in their mid-twenties, the age they thought their enemy now was. Over the past month, the men had been investigating all the names on the list and had cleared all but seventeen.
    The discussion was loud and emotional. The other five Libertine Scholars shared the names on their lists. The women chimed in with comments, and with their help a further five earls were struck off the list when Beatrice commented that their wives had been at finishing school with her.
    “That still leaves twelve names,” Maitland said. “I was hoping it would be smaller.”
    Arend leaned sideways and helped himself to the decanter of brandy on the side table. “My money is still on the Earl of Northumberland’s widow, Lady Isobel’s stepmother.”
    “You simply want it to be her because Lady Isobel vexes you so,” uttered Sebastian. “You want her to be in league with the villain so you can walk away with a clear conscience.”
    All five ladies present swung their gaze to Arend. Hadley laughed inwardly. If they suspected the start of a romance, God help Arend. Hadley was pleased not to be the center of their attention for once.
    “Clear conscience? I don’t have a conscience” was Arend’s dry reply. “You tell me, then, why Isobel was kidnapped along with Marisa. It doesn’t make sense. There has to be a connection.”
    Last month Marisa had been drugged and kidnapped by their villainess. They had managed to rescue her only when the carriage they were abducting her in crashed. Unfortunately, Marisa had been very badly wounded, and Maitland had almost lost her. Isobel too had been in the carriage, but she had been kidnapped from a different location.
    “Perhaps the villain had other plans for Isobel. Perhaps she was taken to extract revenge on another individual.”
    Arend scoffed. “Her father is dead, so who would that be?”
    “She is his only child. Perhaps it was to wipe his lineage from this earth. Something she has savored doing to my husband.” Marisa’s quiet but venom-filled words hung in the air. The injuries Marisa had sustained meant she could never have children. Maitland, sitting beside her, took Marisa’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “But I still have you,” he declared softly.
    Hadley turned away from the private moment so filled with love and devotion. Once he’d thought he shared this with Evangeline, but he’d been a fool. Love was not to be for him. Sometimes that thought made him envy what these men had found with their wives.
    Portia played with a string of pearls round her neck. “I think it’s time we women took the lead. Now that we have a smaller list, we should be investigating the
wives,
not our husbands.”
    Hadley returned his gaze to the ladies as Beatrice spoke.
    “I agree, Portia. This needs a woman’s touch. If the supposedly happily married Libertine Scholars start asking questions about other men’s wives, who knows what gossip will ensue.” Beatrice continued smoothly, “And we don’t wish our villainess to understand just how close we may be.”
    The men all started talking at once. The husbands proclaiming how dangerous it was