Her Mystery Duke Read Online Free PDF

took a deep breath, then put the cool cloth to her face.
It smelled of masculine sweat: musky, spicy, primal. Sparks of arousal
electrified her nerves from head to toe. She tossed the cloth back into the
basin. It landed with a splash.
    Water droplets hit her. She startled.
    A man in her bed. No wonder she was edgy. She had never
shared this space with another soul since Papa, when she used to sleep on the
trundle. Not even a visitor. She had no need for visitors. Her respectable
lovers could never risk their neighbors seeing her coming or leaving from their
homes. She always visited them in the rooms they rented at sordid little
disorderly taverns. Places where no one asked questions and upstairs, no one
looked each other in the face. Places where people kept most of their clothes
on and didn’t turn back the covers. A memory of the coarse, raucous coupling
sounds echoing through the wall, the scent of cheap gin and stale sex from
previous occupants lingering in the air, as strong as if though had only been
yesterday that she had spent that last afternoon with Bernard.
    Her mind traveled back in time.
     
    * * * *
     
    Bernard had let the last page fall from his hand. It had
drifted slowly to join the remaining pile upon the shabby blanket that covered
the bed.
    She released the breath she’d been holding. “Well?”
    “Sentimental pap.”
    She’d known him since shortly after Papa died. His star was
on the rise. But he took the time to tutor her in the finer points of writing.
In exchange for certain favors, of course. All men were the same, even
brilliant playwrights.
    She smiled. “Don’t tease me, Bernard.”
      He looked up,
peering over his spectacles with dark eyes so flat, so serious that she sucked
in her breath again. He shook his head. “I work with you and work with you. It
does no good.”
    Her mouth fell open in surprise.
    “Don’t stare at me with that loose fish expression. It
doesn’t flatter you.”
    “I toiled hard on those.”
    “That’s the pity of it.” He made a sweeping gesture over the
stack of pages. “It’s complete rubbish.”
    “I am going to submit that tomorrow and you are telling me
it is rubbish?”
    He chuckled, the sound cold, almost snide. “Believe me,
Ratherford will take it. The public will consume it with relish.”
    Her chest had gone tight. “I don’t understand.”
    “It is beneath you, Jeanne.”
    “Is it?”
    “Yes.”
    “If it brings some enjoyment to those who read it, haven’t I
succeeded in my endeavor?”
    “You could create works of far more depth, if only you
weren’t such a dreary little ice queen.”
    “Ice queen?”
    “You’ll never be a great writer.”
    “Bernard, this is not something I wish to be teased over.”
      He leveled a stern
look. “I told you already, I am not teasing. You’ll never be a true author or
playwright or poetess. Or anything else until you let yourself feel.”
    Her heart began to pound and her chest grew even tighter.
“You’re saying I don’t feel? I feel.”
    He cocked a brow.
    “I feel .”
    “You feel nothing. For anyone.”
    “I feel inside. It is not easy for me to bring that out into
the open. You know that.”
    “You merely toy with the sensation and drama of feeling, for
your own amusement. That’s the only value you place on others—their ability to
generate these sham passions in the depths of your imagination.”
    Surely all the blood had drained from her head, for she’d
gone all-lightheaded. The candles seemed a bit too bright. Her heart pounded
even harder. He couldn’t be right. But why was he being so cruel to her? “Take
it back, Bernard.”
    He stared back with a hard expression, his arms crossed over
his chest.
    She wanted to run to him and hit him. Hit him again and
again until he took back every damned word. Until he became so angry, he would
take her to bed and she could feel in the only way that seemed safe.
    But she didn’t. Instead, she took a deep, shuddering breath
then