Love and Other Scandals Read Online Free PDF Page A

vacant chair by the bed.
    “I can’t go to the Macmillan ball.”
    “Malcolm ball,” Tristan corrected him.
    Bennet sat up, throwing off his covers. “It’s the opening night of the new opera—there’s an entirely new ballet corps. From France.”
    “So it is.”
    “So you see I can’t possibly go to the bloody ball!” Bennet exclaimed. “The best girls will be taken by the end of the week.”
    Tristan shrugged. “So don’t go to the ball.”
    “No.” Bennet looked almost fearful. “You don’t understand. Now Joan’s got my promise in writing—if I don’t go to the ball, there will be severe consequences.”
    “Your sister will come back?” Tristan was appalled. “Someone needs to rein her in—”
    “No, it will be much worse.” Bennet shuddered. “It will be my mother. She’ll have me at tea. At balls. Cotillions. Musicales. Philosophical meetings.” He might as well have been describing the circles of hell, from his expression. Although, to Tristan’s ears, those were the circles of hell.
    “You should go to the ball, then.” Tristan got up and turned toward the door. This was not his problem, after all.
    “God, no! I just need to get that paper back from Joan before my mother sees it.”
    “You’d better run,” said Tristan dryly. The sound of the door closing had echoed up the stairs just a moment ago. “She’s already gone.”
    “Christ!” Bennet leapt out of bed and scrambled for his trousers. Tristan was almost out the door when he called, “Burke, wait! You’ve got to help me.”
    “Why?” Tristan scratched his chin. “You should have put her in her place and ordered her from the house.”
    Bennet gave a harsh laugh as he pulled a shirt over his head. “You don’t know Joan if you think that’s the way to deal with her. Help me, man, or I’ll be cut to pieces.”
    “No more than you deserve,” he muttered, but he threw up his hands. “How am I supposed to help? She obviously didn’t approve of me, if you didn’t notice.”
    Bennet was yanking on his boots. “You know how to talk to women. Just . . .” He waved one hand in the air. “Talk her out of the paper.”
    He’d much rather talk her out of an orange dress and into a gold one. Yes, a rich gold silk, cut low across her bosom and shoulders—without a shred of lace—and swathing her hips and waist closely. He wondered how small her waist was; with a bosom like hers, a small waist would be just the thing. There could be a true Venus under those wretched ruffles.
    “Burke, I’m begging,” said Bennet. “Help me, this once, in my time of desperate need.”
    It didn’t really matter how small her waist was, or what her hair would look like unbound. She was a blackmailing Fury. One couldn’t abandon a fellow man to the manipulations of such a creature, even if it was his sister. Tristan gave in. “Very well. Let me dress.”
    By the time he was clothed, Bennet was pacing in the hall, raggedly knotting a cravat around his neck. “She’ll be almost home by now,” he said. He shoved his hands through his hair, not for the first time from the looks of things. “Good God, what a plague!”
    “She can’t be that bad,” said Tristan, thinking of his aunt and cousins. They were a plague, with all of Miss Bennet’s sharp-tongued temper and none of her wit. All of her interest in ugly dresses and none of her bosom. All of her boldness and none of her dash.
    “You’ve never had to live with her,” muttered Bennet as he threw open the door.
    Sunlight blazed into the hall. Bennet squinted and cursed some more, but clattered down the steps to the edge of the street. Then he stopped, turning from side to side. “Devil take me. Which way would she go?”
    “Home?” Tristan followed more slowly, pulling his hat low on his forehead. Gads, it was bright out here. “I absolutely refuse to chase her into your parents’ house.”
    Bennet inhaled a long breath. “Right. Home. Although Joan is fond of