How to Seduce a Duke Read Online Free PDF Page B

rather light in the head. When she had agreed to call on Lord Lotharian with her sisters, she had been fairly certain that nothing more would come to pass than her sisters coming home with another useless packet of letters or the like.
    This turn of events, however, was unimaginable. She could not have prepared for this.
    Not for a grand lady prepared to install them in to London society.
    Not for a secret membership of old rakes.
    Certainly not for doorways hidden within walls of old books.
    “Hurry now, Mary.” The old woman beckoned her forward. “The gentlemen will be waiting.”
    “G-gentlemen?” Mary swallowed deeply. “I thought we were to meet Lord Lotharian ?”
    “Oh yes, dear, but there are two others who heard the story of your birth that night. You will wish to make their acquaintance as well. Come now. Do not tarry.”
    Mary moved her feet slowly toward the open bookcase. At that very moment, Anne and Elizabeth disappeared into the darkness beyond.
    A cool draft from the secret passage lifted the fine loose tendrils of Mary’s hair, making her shiver. Still, she stepped forward.
    The moment the thick darkness of the secret passage enveloped her, Mary heard the bookcase begin to move closed again. She whirled around.
    In the waning light of the library, she could just see Lady Upperton’s smiling face. “You are not joining us, Lady Upperton ?” she asked.
    Lady Upperton grinned at that. “Oh goodness no, child. It is a gentlemen’s club, after all. I am but the gatekeeper. It would not do for you three to be seen entering the club, so Lotharian sent you to my house. Go on with your sisters, gel. Follow the small circle of light you will see in a moment. Follow it until you reach the passage. Then knock twice. Hard. I daresay Lotharian’s hearing is not what it once was.” Without another word, Lady Upperton closed the bookcase behind Mary.
    “Are you coming, Mary?” came Elizabeth ’s whisper a short distance down the passage.
    Mary dragged a breath of musty air through her nose. “I am.”
    No more than a clutch of moments had passed before Mary felt the presence of her sisters beside her. As Lady Upperton had said, a thin wand of candlelight sliced through an eye-shaped hole at the end of the passage. The sisters, hands instinctively clasped, moved together toward the end of the passage.
    Mary released Anne’s hand and made to rap twice upon the wall, as Lady Upperton had instructed. But her sister stopped her.
    “Look through the peephole first and tell us what you can see.”
    Mary tilted her head and gazed up at the oval. “I am not nearly tall enough,” she whispered.
    “I will do it.” Elizabeth began moving about in the darkness. “Come now, Mary, give me your knee and help me onto Anne’s shoulders—like we used to do in Mr. Smythe’s orchard.”
    “This is madness.” Mary braced a leg behind her, then bent her forward knee for Elizabeth .
    A great wheezing sound burst from Anne’s lips as Elizabeth ’s legs came down upon her shoulders and her feet pressed at the sides of her sister’s back for balance.
    Anne took a shaky step forward. “Go on, look through. What do you see?”
    Elizabeth bent a bit at the waist and peered through the peephole. “It’s... a library. Why, it appears to be Lady Upperton’s library—except in reverse... it is like viewing her library in a mirror’s reflection! I’d swear to it.”
    In that instant, Mary heard the sound of metal moving against metal. Suddenly, the wall moved, depositing Anne and Elizabeth in a tumbled heap onto a Turkish carpet, leaving Mary standing alone in the shadowy passage.
    A rail-thin man with a full head of thick gray hair looked amusedly from Mary’s sisters to two men who stood near the tea table. “What did I tell you, gents?”
    He leaned forward to settle his pipe in a burled wood tray, then raised his quizzing glass to his eye and peered down at the two young women sprawled near the hearth. He lifted