Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

flirting, you mean.”
    Evie’s dreamy smile dimmed. “Mags, when did you become so ungracious toward all save your family? Or are you going to chastise Valentine for tarrying with his friends tonight?”
    “I’m just tired.” She did not say she was increasingly worried about her reticule.
    “Dancing will do that.” Evie sat up, and Maggie knew her inquisition wasn’t quite over. “You and Mr. Hazlit make a gorgeous couple.”
    “Nothing I do constitutes a gorgeous anything, Eve Windham. You will cease that talk immediately.”
    “You sound just like Mama in a taking with one of the boys,” Evie said, smiling widely. “You should have seen yourself, Mags. Your eyes sparkled when he held you in his arms.”
    “Evie!” Though Maggie had to smile. In some ways, Evie was still their baby girl, allowed to hold on to the innocence of childhood well past her come out.
    “They did. Mama had already gone on to Almack’s with the others, but Val and I saw you.”
    “I wanted to assure myself the man wasn’t up to his spying. Not on us, anyway.”
    “Mags, he wouldn’t be spying at a ball.”
    “Yes, Evie, he would.”
    And that was something else she’d be talking to Helene Anders about in the morning.
    ***
     
    Hazlit slowed his pace as he made his way home, forcing himself to calm down. He’d made a few more passes among the Winterthurs’ guests, had gleaned what information he could, then taken himself off before the dancing had resumed after supper.
    Spying, indeed. Spying was for sneaks and voyeurs, not for belted earls.
    The hypocrisy of that—his holding a title but hiding it—slowed his steps even further. He didn’t hide his title, exactly, he just didn’t trade on it.
    He was still trying to sort out his temper when he took a snifter of brandy up to his chambers. He managed without his valet, undressing himself down to his skin, hanging his evening attire on the wardrobe door, then finding his favorite silk dressing gown. The evening was chilly, but his chambers were warm in anticipation of his arrival.
    Out of habit, he took his drink to the desk near the blazing hearth in his private sitting room.
    What had he seen?
    He began to record the evening’s harvest of information and concluded he could narrow down the possible paramours for Lady Abigail Norcross to two. Lord Norcross had assured Hazlit he wasn’t going to use the information to bring adultery grounds against his wife in a divorcement proceeding.
    But he was going to threaten, Hazlit knew. He was going to stomp about, bellow, and strut, when the man himself was no scion of fidelity.
    But women could not sue for adultery, as a man’s seed was his to spend where he pleased. A wife’s womb belonged to her spouse, though, just like the rest of her. Norcross had his heir and two spares; all he wanted was the freedom to live apart from his wife on some sort of terms. The lady was loathe to give up her place at his side but equally given to finding her consolation outside the marriage bed.
    It shouldn’t matter, of course, since her by-blows were unlikely to inherit, but to Lord Norcross, it did.
    The dismal topic brought him back to the matter of Miss Magdalene Windham, a ducal by-blow raised with Moreland’s legitimate brood.
    Without conscious volition, Hazlit began to sketch her. She had magnificent eyes to go with that hair, and a rather strong nose. The nose suited her, as did the defined jaw and chin. As his pen moved over the paper, he watched the image taking form on the page.
    Magdalene Windham was beautiful.
    Not in the pale, mousey English mold, but in an earthier, more dramatic way. Her brows and lashes were darker than her hair, and having held her in his arms he could attest to a few freckles across her nose and on her shoulders. Just a few.
    They made a man want to kiss…
    He tossed the pen down, for he’d drawn the woman not in her ballroom attire but as he’d seen her previously, with her hair tumbling down, her eyes