Getting Wilde Read Online Free PDF Page B

that was lit from bedrock to rooftop. Beside me, the Magician eyed the house with a curious mix of emotions flitting across his face. Sadness. Regret. Pride. Affection.  
    Not for the first time, I wished I could crawl around inside his head. So much easier than the painful uncertainty of conversation. People could lie. Armaeus was about to, I knew before asking the question. “Um, who are these people, exactly?”  
    He drew his fingers together, steepling them in front of his nose. It was a movement that for anyone else would denote prayer, a petition to the heavens. But Armaeus was the heavens—and the earth. He prayed to no god that I knew of.  
    A second later, he drew his hands away, and I blinked. His face was completely devoid of any expression except pleasant affability. Gone were the deep lines of tension that had bracketed his mouth. Gone was the stern cast to his brow, the hard set of his jaw. In its place was the unlined, carefree face of a handsome man in his thirties who’d apparently just returned from a six-month vacation in Fiji.    
    “Whoa. That is so much better than Botox.”  
    “Try to mind your manners while we’re here. If it helps, imagine that you have taken on the identity of someone who is polite. Even charming.”  
    “That’ll cost extra.”  
    “I have no doubt.”  
    The car slowed, but before it came to a full stop, the front doors of the immense mansion swung open. A full-test liveried butler stepped out along with an equally outfitted housekeeper, much more chatelaine than French maid, both of them completely ruining the Downton Abbey effect by beaming like they were little kids.  
    Bustling out between them was a tiny old woman wrapped in a shawl, her white hair glistening in the stream of lights. Beside her strode a devastatingly gorgeous man. He was tall, well-built, with piercing eyes that stared out from a burnished bronze face, and lustrous black hair that edged past his collar. He was stunning. And, more to the point, he could have been Armaeus’s little brother.  
    I straightened. “Um…”  
    “Your manners.”  
    With that, Armaeus’s door was opened, and he stepped easily out of the car, then turned immediately to hand me out. For the first time tonight, I was excruciatingly aware of my beat-up leather jacket, my three-day-straight leggings, my battered boots. Armaeus’s hand twitched with annoyance, so I took it a little harder than necessary, practically ripping the thing off as I hauled myself out of the car.  
    “ Mon seigneur .” A man I hadn’t noticed was flanking the car now, but before he could fully get the words out, the old woman exclaimed with sheer delight, dashing down the steps like she was eight, not eighty.  
    Armaeus turned as she flew into his arms, and he lifted her up and swirled her around. “ Grand-père! ” she squealed, laughing like a child.  
    I tried manfully not to faint. Grand-père?  
    “You are Miss Wilde?” I turned to see the gorgeous man from the top of the stairs looming over me. On close inspection, he wasn’t exactly Armaeus’s doppelgänger, but I made sure my perusal was very thorough, just to be certain.  
    Nope, he was shorter. And more slender.  
    More human too, with his watchful dark eyes appraising me, containing none of the otherworldly glitter that made Armaeus’s eyes so unsettling. He nodded at whatever he saw on my face, which I seriously hoped wasn’t naked lust, but it was probably a close thing. “I am Dante Bertrand, and it is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to Le Sri. Please forgive the bright lights. We do not often have the chance to entertain guests.”  
    “Of course.” I suppose the whole point of naming your house gave you permission not to invite people over.  He placed a hand on my arm, which apparently set off an electrical pulse in Armaeus. He glanced over from the elderly woman, his gaze leaping from Dante to me.  
    “ Mais, Grand-père! Elle est— ” The