Lady Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to render you speechless nor take my
honest impatience
out on anyone.”
    A muffled snort then another splurt of hilarity met his ears. “Wivy, you may leave now. I’ll conduct the rest of the interview.” The embroidered scene trembled, followed by yet another snort. “I do believe I’d like to be alone with our guest.”
    Satisfaction surged through Zeus. Now he and the mysterious Lady Scandal would get somewhere. Somewhere that led him closer to her body, and closer to Amherst. Although, at the moment, he was more eager to meet the “lady” who possessed such unladylike laughter—laughter he somehow found eminently engaging—than he was to seek redress for ancient acts of contempt and derision. Trifling now, they almost seemed, when he was faced with his
future
.
    Though since meeting her—or nearly so—his conscience nagged, poking at him like a pointy pebble in his boot.
Tell her the truth. All of it.
Ignoring the annoying sense of scruples, Zeus rammed his hair back, wishing he could see through the partition as easily.
    As she admired the slightly muddled specimen of male perfection through the divider, Juliet had to remember she was invisible to him. One wouldn’t know it, the way he fixed his gaze upon her precise location, fairly stripping her bare with the fierce expression he directed her way.
    An evocative warmth spiraled through her in the wake of his heated gaze, tensing her muscles and setting her on edge. Flickering about her stomach and bringing a boldness to her tongue she’d not employed before, not with a father and then a husband who each maintained womenfolk should be blindly—and silently—obedient in all things.
    Feminine opinions were
not
to be voiced. Certainly not heard and considered.
    But with the way Mr. Tanner held himself and beheld her through the screen, all confident cockiness and self assurance in spite of the outrageous answers he supplied, Juliet doubted he’d allow himself to be threatened by any “mere” woman.
    In fact, part of her dared speculate…might he
solicit
her opinions on occasion, given how, even though he made his reluctance keenly apparent, he remained amenable to discussing each and every query topic she broached? A husband who talked with her! Would that not be sparkish fine?
    And Lord how her throat hurt! He made her laugh, this particular applicant. Causing the rusty, seldom-used reflex to scrape up her neck and emerge without constraint, sounding somewhat like a braying donkey she feared, but oh, how wonderful it felt. Almost as wonderful as the wicked, wanton urges he brought forth with nothing but his presence.
    Juliet’s fingers ached to touch the strong, corded muscles of his neck visible above his simply tied cravat, the muscles that even now worked as he clenched his jaw. No surprise, given the subterfuge he’d caught her enacting. But unlike the previous man who’d turned nasty when he’d found her out, Mr. Tanner only challenged her to face him, to
speak
with him.
    “Please, Wivy,” she whispered, not above pleading with her friend to leave them alone, but not wanting him to hear how desperately. After the plethora of unsuccessful interviews they’d conducted the last couple of weeks, after all she’d endured, she’d truly begun to despair of ever finding a potential, decent mate.
    It was a miracle she hadn’t canceled the entire scheme. While she’d seriously contemplated abandoning everything a time or two during some of the more wretched interviews, she hadn’t.
    And now a man stood before her, his responses nearly so absurdly perfect, Juliet was half afraid to ask him anything else. But ask she must.
    Others were dependent upon her.
    Merely because her melting insides craved for him to be the one, she couldn’t hide from the reality that his last response didn’t bode well. His lack of estate management experience should’ve been the red flag that waved him on his way. But she couldn’t turn