Heiress Without a Cause Read Online Free PDF Page B

clean cut direct — or demand something to buy his silence. The shiver that went through her on that thought didn’t feel much like fear, but she refused to consider what it might be instead.
    She dug deep, ready to brazen it out. “You may not escort me to my carriage. My mother does not permit me to associate with strange men.” She nodded in the direction of Josephine, who closed her mouth and attempted to look dignified.
    “Your mother?” Ferguson asked. He was understandably skeptical, since Josephine was nearly six inches shorter than Madeleine and dressed in plain, serviceable grey. “And what of Monsieur Guerrier?”
    “Sadly, he left me alone in the world,” she said, sniffing as though the memory of her nonexistent husband still caused her pain.
    “A pity, I am sure,” he said, a predatory smile playing on his lips.
    She swatted his arm and tried again to pull away. “It was a tragedy. Now if you will excuse me, I really must be home before the hour grows any later.”
    He smoothly turned her, taking her arm as though they were a couple on promenade. She could feel the taut muscles trapping her against him — and was reminded that this was not a weak lordling, but a man used to having his way. “My dear Madame Guerrier... what is your Christian name?”
    The question caught her off guard. “Marguerite,” she said, maintaining her fake identity despite the slamming of her heart against her ribs.
    “Marguerite,” he said, the word rolling over his tongue as though he could seduce her just with the sound of it. “Marguerite, I can hardly hope you will give me the answer I want to hear — but tell me, have you taken a protector?”
    She stopped in her tracks. Of all the questions she thought he might ask her — why she was in disguise, how she could act in such a place, what she would do to stop him from ruining her — she didn’t expect this. “How can you ask such a thing?”
    “This is surely not the first time a man has asked you?”
    She waved a hand in the air, pretending she had been offered for many times before. “The ton would expect you to do better than an unknown actress from Seven Dials.”
    He laughed. “All mistresses start somewhere, darling. But I must confess I have little use for the ton, nor it for me.”
    He said it lightly, but Madeleine caught a glimpse of the lost boy beneath his polished masculinity. He almost sounded lonely.
    Rather how she often felt herself.
    So even though she should have run shrieking from him, that flash of sympathy made her soften the blow. “It is too soon to speak of such things, your grace.”
    “I have not taken a mistress in years, nor have I ever offered for one without having a single conversation. But you are too lovely and too talented to miss. It is not just likely that you will become someone’s mistress — it is inevitable.”
    She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you think so little of my virtue, then I must bid you good evening.”
    “Your virtue is something you wish to protect?”
    “It is,” Madeleine said. If there was a tremor in her voice, it was from indignation at the way his hand forced her chin up to look into his face, not from the pleasure she got from his touch.
    He held her there for an endless minute. She couldn’t see him properly in the dark, but felt everything in his gaze — attraction, annoyance, a devilish sense of humor, an autocratic need to be obeyed. But it was the heat lurking underneath that made her nervous — and set off a matching heat as she blushed under his assessing eyes.
    Finally, he released her. She might have fallen from relief if her knees weren’t locked in place. “Madame Guerrier, you have my apologies. I should not have assumed you were like every other actress in London. Your virtue is as superlative as your talent.”
    She inclined her head, accepting his apology.
    Then he stepped closer. “But in case you do not realize what you are denying...”
    He pulled her into his