Loving Lord Ash Read Online Free PDF Page A

appeared the cooking had not improved.
    “Have ye come to fetch Lady Ashton, then, milord?”
    He put his fork down. He had no appetite at all. “No.”
    He did not wish to discuss Jess.
    The girl nodded. “That’s what we figured.” She looked at him from under her lashes. “Ye know we’re jealous of yer lady, milord. She has all those handsome men around her at the manor. She must be sorely tempted.” She batted her lashes. “Not that ye aren’t as handsome as any of them, o’ course, but ye’ve been away.” She looked down and put her hand on his thigh, quite close to his cock—his sadly flaccid cock, completely unmoved by her nearness. “Ye must know people say she’s had no trouble keeping warm at night.”
    The image of that bloody footman, Bagley, slammed into his mind, quickly followed by the vision of Jess with her hair hanging down her back . . .
    That image caused his cock to stir.
    He shifted so Nan’s hand slipped off his leg. “I do not discuss my wife.”
    The girl’s lower lip jutted out. “I only wanted to offer ye some comfort, milord. Ye must be lonely.”
    He was lonely. Terribly lonely.
    He looked over the room. The men, who’d all been watching as avidly as any London gossip, returned their attention to their meals.
    He should take Nan up to his room. Jess deserved it.
    But Nan didn’t deserve to be used in such a fashion. She should be taken in love or at least in lust, not in anger. Not because he wished to hurt his wife.
    And in any event, the question was academic. It would not just be Jess who would be mortified if he brought this girl to his bed. His cock was clearly unwilling to rise to the occasion unless Jess was involved. It now lay between his thighs as if dead.
    He felt dead. All he wanted to do was take a bottle of brandy upstairs and get blindingly, numbingly drunk.
    “Thank you, Nan, but I find I am not feeling quite the thing. I believe I’ll retire for the night.”
    She smiled hopefully.
    “Alone.”

Chapter Three
     
Fear is rarely a good companion.
—Venus’s Love Notes
     
    “It’s over, blast it. It’s finally over. I’m bloody happy it’s over.” Jess threw her private sketchbook, the one she used for the drawings only she would see, at the fire, but the pages caught the air, and the book fluttered to the floor, inches short of her target.
    Roger, leaning against the mantel, bent over and picked it up.
    “Give me that.” She almost stepped on Kit’s tail in her hurry to grab the book, but Roger held it over his head.
    “No. You’ve been drawing in this for as long as I’ve known you, Jess. It must be important, since you never show it to anyone. I will not let you consign it to the flames.”
    The book was full of pictures of Kit. She stretched to grab it from him. “Don’t you dare look inside.”
    “Of course I won’t.” Roger’s expression was a mixture of disgust and pity. “You know me better than that.”
    She did know him better. What was the matter with her? She pushed her hair off her face. “I’m sorry.”
    “You’re merely feeling a trifle overset,” Dennis said, pausing in his pacing by the door.
    They were in her bedroom, which looked like a whirlwind had hit it. Her valise was open on her bed, and everything she owned was strewn about. She had pulled things out of drawers, then put them back, then pulled them out again, all while arguing with—and sometimes shouting at—Roger and Dennis.
    Her maid, Dennis’s older sister Helena, had fled an hour ago, unable to stand the battle raging around her. Kit was hiding under the bed—all of him but his tail.
    “A trifle overset?” Roger snorted. “She’s dicked in the nob.” He glared at her. “Get back to packing, Jess. You need to go after your husband tonight if you want to have any hope of saving your marriage.”
    Roger was the bedlamite here. “Didn’t you hear Lord Ashton? It’s already too late. He wants nothing more to do with me.”
    Kit was going to