Lady Windermere's Lover Read Online Free PDF

finally. “But I didn’t know Windermere was already in town. I assumed he had been delayed.”
    If Denford expressed sympathy now, she would leave. She would ask the theater servants to find her a hackney and go home alone. Her sense of humiliation was too great to be borne in sight of another. Gradually her heightened breathing abated. “So he is merely escorting the wife of a senior colleague, then. Very polite of him.”
    “I’m sure that’s the reason,” Julian said. She’d almost recovered her equilibrium when he delivered the final blow. “It is common knowledge that Windermere’s affair with Lady Belinda was over years ago.”
    Common knowledge to all except the stupid lowborn wife he’d married for her uncle’s money. Foolishly, she couldn’t keep her eyes off them. She saw her husband take the satin hand of his former mistress and raise it to his lips. Not so former would be her guess. The letter from the Foreign Office had told her he’d reach London two days ago. Perhaps he had. But those two days—and nights—had not been spent at Windermere House.
    Julian’s supple fingers massaged the tense muscles of her neck, out of sight of the casual observer. The sensation of flesh on flesh sent tingles of sensation down her back and up between her legs.
    Damian, Earl of Windermere, might have come home this night and satisfied the desire that pooled in her most private place, but he preferred a former mistress in red satin. And when, after all, had he ever satisfied her desires?
    She wanted satisfaction. Even more, she craved intimacy and human connection.
    “I don’t want to see the rest of the play, Julian. Take me home.”
    E ven if he changed his mind, Damian had no chance to tackle Denford at the theater. The duke and his blond beauty left before the last act. Damian accompanied Lady Belinda home. Declining offers of refreshment—liquid or carnal—and the use of her carriage, he opted to walk back to his hotel in St. James’s. It was a crisp, clear night without the pervasive damp that chilled one to the bone in a London winter. He could almost see the stars, or at least could imagine they were there. London always seemed both domestic and exotic to him. As a child, the occasional visit to the capital with his mother and sister had been exciting. Then, when they weren’t gallivanting around continental Europe, Julian, Robert, Marcus, and he would raise hell and shock the straitlaced out of their stays. After he determined to become a responsible citizen and serve the public, he’d chosen diplomacy, and once more spent much of his time abroad.
    The pleasant streets of Mayfair held no particular memories, good or bad. He had no intention of going as far south as Pall Mall, site of the great disaster that changed his life. On a whim he prolonged his walk by an eastward diversion to Hanover Square, the site of his family’s London abode.
    Reaching the square, he detected light through the drawn curtains of the square brick mansion. Intending to leave for the country almost immediately, he hadn’t thought it worth opening the house. With his new, and most unwelcome mission, he supposed he’d have to bring his wife back from Beaulieu and occupy Windermere House.
    During his absences abroad, the house was let for the season, bringing in a handsome income, but it was odd that there should be tenants in occupation during December. He walked around the square and found the knocker on the door; someone was in residence. Before he could dwell on the possible awkwardness of intruding on strangers late at night, he rapped sharply.
    A couple of minutes later his butler admitted him.
    “Good evening, my lord,” Ellis said, betraying not an iota of shock. “We expected you two days ago. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”
    “Very good, thank you, Ellis. Who told you I would be in London?”
    “Her Ladyship, of course. She only arrived this morning but she wrote and warned us to be ready for