Duke Ever After (Dukes' Club Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

That voice seemed to say, “Come with me, lass, and I’ll ruin you forever and you’ll not regret it for a moment.”
    In fact, it had been all she could do when they spoke to appear entirely unimpressed by his imposing and delicious person.
    “He is remarkable,” she said at last.
    “He will lead you into scandal if you let him.”
    “When have you been overly concerned with scandal?”
    “Lady Rosamund, I have become increasingly thoughtful on it since your brother’s entrenchment into propriety. If he even knew we were discussing such a thing, he’d toss me out on my ear.”
    “But you don’t mean to go entirely proper, do you?”
    “Lady Rosamund, I could never,” the maid teased. “Still, you must be careful. You don’t want your brother sending you to a nunnery school in France.”
    “I am far too old for that.”
    Maeve gave a sad shake of her silvering head. “With strong-willed men like your brother, I have found that ladies are never too old for that kind of censuring.”
    That gave her pause. She knew Duncan wouldn’t do that to her. She was too independent by far but it would change their relationship. Then again, their relationship had already changed. She loved her brother but he was burying himself alive. It was a fate she couldn’t allow for herself.
    “I desire to know this duke better,” she said firmly. So firmly, she was half certain it was to convince herself. “I don’t need to sin with him per se but I cannot simply leave our acquaintance at this one meeting. Maeve, I am certain fate sent him to me.”
    Maeve clucked. “I have a terrible feeling, my lady, that you’re the sort that should be married straight away.”
    “Oh, indeed?”
    “Yes. Then, at least, you’d be a good deal freer to make a bit of scandal.”
    Rosamund winked. “And if I want scandal before the wedding?”
    “Then you will be choosing a most challenging life.”
    She considered that. She liked facts. She liked to know the possible outcomes of her actions. If she were to throw her life away for a fling with the Duke of Aston, who didn’t seem inclined, would it be worth it?
    She took in a deep breath. “And if I could keep it a secret?”
    “It would have to be very secret.”
    “If I could?”
    “Then, my lady, as they’d say in the ton , anything goes.”

Chapter 4
    Derek charged into Lady Cavendish’s lavish hunting lodge, a feeling so unfamiliar dogging his steps he almost didn’t notice Cordelia, the Duchess of Hunt, standing in the library doorway.
    “Lose your clothes did you?” she drawled.
    Derek stopped, prepared to snarl but then he recalled himself. The Duke of Aston didn’t snarl. He was a font of naughtiness and goodwill.
    “They wandered off,” he sallied. He was still clenching the tartan blanket about his waist and he hadn’t even realized, so distracted was he. Which boded very ill, indeed.
    Cordelia, whom he had been acquainted with now for a few months, eyed him. “I say, you weren’t rogering some Highland lass? I mean, all well and good for a bit of pleasure. . . but it’s a terrible cliché.”
    “No,” he replied. “No rogering the local ladies at present, if you must know.”
    He did have a reputation for loving the ladies but, in all actuality in the last years, he had slowed dramatically in his pursuit of pure pleasure. He certainly didn’t stoop to young women in fields. . . Though apparently fiery maids in lochs were a dangerous temptation.
    “She must have been quite something,” Cordelia insisted, bracing her small hands on her rounded middle. “To leave you naked.”
    “I’m not naked. I’m—“ He looked down at himself. He was, indeed, nearly naked and a slight shade of blue. “It’s a kilt.”
    “It is not a kilt,” she countered with an arch of her brow. “A kilt is a specific piece of tartan worn in a specific way by the people indigenous to the Highlands of—“
    “Cordelia, a history lesson in clan life is not necessary at