After the Scandal Read Online Free PDF

elegant sinew, and hold the fey weight of her in his arms, as if he could subsume her into himself. How he wanted to do so with a sudden swiftness that shocked him to his core. And how he knew he would no longer be able to merely worship her from afar.
    And so he slid closer to her, down on his knees in front of the stern seat, lifting his elbow over her head so he could line his right arm up with hers, and show her how to sight.
    All along the length of his arm, where the linen of his shirtsleeve lay over the material of his own coat covering her, he felt the heat and slight, fine-boned tension of her beneath fanning across his skin.
    “And then?”
    He felt, more than heard, her quiet question hum into his chest. She was looking up at him, so close the moonlight poured into her eyes, and lit her like a beacon. And he thought he really ought to kiss her.
    And then she turned her head sharply away.
    God’s balls. It was as if he had forgotten what had happened only half of an hour ago. And that there was a gun in his hands. A loaded, primed, and cocked gun, ready to fire.
    He was a cad. An armed, dangerous, guileful cad, who was not worthy of her. And he proved it by shutting down all sensation but the feel of her finger under his on the trigger. He squeezed.
    Within a second, the slick sound of the flint hitting spark was drowned out in the echoing roar of the deafening explosion as the gun spat its bullet over the still surface of the water, and sped into the dark, silent wood behind the bank.
    Her arm gave way immediately—she would have dropped the weapon if he had not held her there, buoyed by his strength and by his resolve to stay there, close to her, as long as possible. As long as she would allow.
    But her arm, and indeed her whole body, began to tremble, and he made himself slide away from her, and take up his oars, and let her be.
    “There’s more to it of course—the need to have a good, well-made lock, and keep a sharp flint, and a well-tempered frizzen, as well as proper loading, priming, and a proper touchhole.” He was blathering—something he never did. Or had never done before.
    But he had never been so close to Lady Claire Jellicoe before.
    Her nearness unhinged him, opening some heretofore-leashed part of his character. She made him a stranger to himself.
    She lowered the gun to the seat beside her, and looked at it for a long moment, and he, who saw people think just as clearly as if he were reading a broadsheet, had absolutely no idea of her thoughts.
    And so he—who never babbled—babbled on. “Even though the charge is now spent, you can still use the pistol as a weapon, if you take hold of the barrel with a backward grip, so you can backhand the butt of the gun across your attacker’s face at a moment’s notice if they make the mistake of thinking to act like Rosing.”
    Which was exactly the wrong thing to say.
    She folded herself back into the sanctuary of his coat and turned to look over the water in the direction the gun had fired. “I hope to God I didn’t hit anyone, or anything.”
    They were passing the along the unpopulated expanse of the Old Deer Park, the acres of former Royal hunting grounds that had originally made Richmond a retreat for the nobility.
    “Only people in this wood this time of night are poachers.” Who might be expected to have earned whatever stray bullets came their way.
    Of course, he was contrary enough to have a rather brotherly feeling for the poachers, despite being a duke. Honor among thieves, and all that.
    “Thank you for the lesson in shooting.” Despite her discomfort, she was nothing if not unfailingly polite.
    “I can teach you more.” He hoped his offer didn’t sound as salacious aloud as did in the depths of his mind.
    It must not have, because she brightened a little—a star coming out from behind the night clouds—and said, “What else?”
    “Just listen.” With another quick glance over his shoulder, he steered the skiff toward