Cheryl Holt Read Online Free PDF

doubt it,” she asserted. “I don’t even like you.”
    “On that point”—he grinned—“we’re in complete accord.”
    “Quit behaving so badly,” she pleaded.
    Her appeal was sincere, and it tugged at his conscience. He considered relenting, letting her have her way, so he could see her smile, but he didn’t.
    They could have engaged in a lengthy quarrel—about male needs and preferences, about aristocratic marriages and illicit liaisons—but he could talk until he was blue in the face and never make her understand.
    “I can’t.”
    “Do it for me.” She tossed his own words back at him. “Do it for yourself.”
    “I won’t.”
    Her temper flared. “Then we’re at loggerheads.”
    “I expect that we are.”
    An awkward silence ensued. She studied him, checking for flaws and finding too many; then she threatened, “I’ll be watching you.”
    Regal as any queen, she turned and marched out.

  3  
    Ellen was squashed into the corner of the packed, stifling ballroom when she observed Lord Stanton creeping toward the exit. At the same moment, a blond beauty slipped onto the verandah. The pair was likely departing for a tryst—Stanton seemed to prefer secluded libraries—and Ellen rippled with exasperation.
    She couldn’t say why she was determined to spy on him, or why his conduct bothered her. Why should it? What was it to her if he acted like an ass?
    The answer was beyond her. Normally, she was a rational, prudent person, who was versed in the peculiarities of the Quality, yet for obscure motives she couldn’t define, she was obsessed with him.
    The explanation had to be rooted in her past. He and his friends had destroyed her family, and the ramifications of their perfidy went on and on. Though James had been sentenced to twenty years of hard labor, he’d recently escaped from captivity, with half his sentence served, and had returned to London.
    She hadn’t seen him but had received several furtiveletters, which indicated he wasn’t the charming, innocent boy he’d been but a ruthless, cynical man who had too much money and no valid accounting for how he’d come by it. Every time she thought about his current perils, she panicked all over again.
    From the morning of his arrest, her life had been a long string of disappointment and toil, and she was slowly realizing that unhealed wounds from that episode occasionally gripped her and ruled her actions.
    She wanted to have something go right, wanted to be in control. Her need to manage a satisfactory conclusion for Rebecca had taken on absurd, monumental proportions. Plus, Stanton was just so annoying. He presumed he could perpetrate any vile atrocity and get away with it.
    Which was true, but that didn’t mean she had to meekly accept his antics. He’d had the audacity to propose indecency to Ellen, herself. She was still reeling from the strange suggestion, and she’d spent many frenzied hours struggling to deduce why he’d done it.
    Had she furnished some subtle indication that she’d be amenable? Or was he simply the sort who would philander and no reason was necessary?
    She peeked about, but no one was paying any attention to her, and she tiptoed away to locate the library. It was the only door in the lengthy hallway that had been closed, and she spun the knob, delighted to find that Stanton hadn’t had the foresight to lock it.
    Was he so eager that he couldn’t delay? Or was he certain that Ellen wouldn’t waltz in behind him? Had he considered Ellen, at all?
    The notion—that he might have disregarded her—had her furious.
    She sneaked in but didn’t spot anyone. A candleburned on a nearby table, but the rear of the room was dark. She peered through the shadows, when there was a feminine moan, followed by a male chuckle.
    They were already prone on the sofa and shielded from her gaze. Apparently, he hadn’t wasted any effort on the formalities!
    “Do you feel sorry for me?” he inquired, and Ellen shook her head with