Beauty and the Earl Read Online Free PDF Page B

did to protect or betray him, no matter his careful politeness in public. She knew, and she was daring him to say something, do something about it, with just an arch of one finely shaped eyebrow.
    The boldness aroused him beyond measure, just as it had done during their first encounter.  
    “Will you join me for supper at my home?” he asked, and winced. It was an abrupt question.
    She smiled slowly. “Do you count this as our proper introduction?”
    He found himself smiling in return at her cheeky reference to her parting volley the last time they were together.  
    “Indeed, I do. And I would like to share a meal with you tonight.”
    She drew in a deep breath as she considered the question. “I do not believe I have any prior engagements tonight, my lord,” she finally said after what seemed like an interminable amount of time.  
    “Then I will send a carriage for you around seven?” he asked. “And we can eat at eight?”
    “Yes,” she said softly. “I look forward to it. Now I must go. A friend is waiting for me at another shop.”
    He nodded as she gave him one final smile and exited the bookshop. For the first time in almost as long as he could remember, he looked forward to a night too.
     
     
    Violet leaned forward and peered out the window in wonder as Liam’s home came into view through a copse of trees that lined his long, curving drive. He called this a small estate? It seemed massive to her, with a large main house rising up in the darkness and a few outbuildings visible by lamps that lined the pathways.  
    But then, she was accustomed to a very different kind of man than the Earl of Windbury. She took men as lovers and protectors who had the money and status to keep her comfortable and add to her accounts, but she had always avoided men of title. There were too many trappings that came along with a name and five estates and possibly a family who would be crushed by the truth of what he did in the dark.
    The carriage pulled to a stop, and she shook her head to clear her suddenly spinning mind. Lord Windbury was not going to be her protector. She wasn’t even really here for him, but for his secrets. Her body was just a way to access those.
    Her body which betrayed her with shocking pleasure the moment he touched her.
    “You are a foolish girl,” she snapped at herself, loud enough that when the carriage door opened, Liam’s servant gave her a funny look.
    She ignored it and allowed him to help her down, then moved toward the door. It opened before she could knock and to her surprise, it was Liam himself who waited on the other side.  
    She looked at him with a barely suppressed growl of pleasure. He truly was a beautiful man. His face was all hard angles, giving him a lean, hungry look that was only accentuated by the bright, harsh line of the scar that ran along the left side of his face. His hair was dark and too long for the current fashion of close-cropped Grecian-inspired silliness.  
    He was wearing a buttoned white shirt but no jacket, and he had removed any cravat he might have worn at some point. With the shirt open at the collar, she saw a glimpse of warm skin, touched by the sun and lean and muscled.  
    But even though he was a draw in many physical ways, in the end it was his eyes that captured her most. Dark green, almost emerald, they focused entirely too closely on her as she moved toward him, hand outstretched as if they were two people meeting in a normal exchange, rather than lovers who had already shockingly surrendered to pleasures more powerful than she had felt in a long time.
    It would take a good deal of control to maintain her normally casual and rather dismissive façade in the light of the fact that something about this man intrigued her.
    “Miss Milford,” he said, taking her outstretched hand and tugging her gently through the doorway into his foyer.
    She smiled despite her complicated thoughts. “Are we to be so formal, my lord? Even now?”
    He began to