Never a Mistress, No Longer a Maid Read Online Free PDF Page B

Arthur
who’d gone off on a quest.  But it was Ned who’d left home and only seldom
ventured back.    
    It wasn’t that he hadn’t missed his brothers and sister.  He
had.  But he’d wanted more from life than settling into his very comfortable
existence as the slightly younger brother to the Duke of Lynwood.  He was
afraid that if he’d settled into that post, he never would’ve roused himself
from it.  And before he knew it, he’d be sixty years old and soft around the
middle with a wife someone else had found for him and grandchildren who
pestered him constantly.  Actually, the grandchildren might not be too bad. 
But an arranged marriage – he cringed at the very thought.
    Now he was back in London, retired from service and getting
to know his brothers as men.  Men who took full advantage of the entertainments
London offered.
    But, truthfully, the appeal of late nights had begun to
pall.  Ned had even begged off from his brothers one night last week claiming
illness, then stayed home to read a book.   He’d had to be careful to hide his
perfidy since they all lived at Lynwood House, but his valet and former batman
Rigg had once again had his back, even if the man had thought the behavior
queer indeed.
    “What say you, Madame L’Amour’s or that new gaming hell?”
asked Arthur. 
    It had been the whimsy of their late parents to name their
children after four Kings of England, and one Queen.  Arthur was the tallest of
the Kellington brothers, a fact that seemed to bother the duke just the
slightest bit, which meant Arthur took every opportunity to point it out.  His
hair was the fairest of all of them, much closer to their sire’s light brown
than to their mother’s raven locks.  His build – like all of the Kellington
brothers’ – was lean muscle distributed across broad shoulders, a well-developed
chest, a rippled stomach, narrow hips and strong thighs.
    Experienced women of the ton compared the Kellington
brothers to each other in great detail – and found none of them wanting.
    Henry, known to everyone as Hal, had a love of women
reminiscent of Henry VIII, even if their parents had the bravery of Henry V in
mind when they named him.   Hal was always quick with a smile and a joke, which
meant he could charm wives and avoid castration from their husbands almost
equally well.  He wore his chestnut hair to his shoulders, pulled back in a
queue.
    Their sister Elizabeth was the baby of the family at one and
twenty, but, like her namesake, could hold her own with the men of her family. 
With curly black hair, she was the only other member of the family to have Ned’s
emerald eyes.  Since her come-out, she’d been pursued by every eligible man
between 18 and 80, and had, up to this point, accumulated a dozen proposals of
marriage, all of which she’d politely turned down. 
    She also would’ve been the recipient of countless indecent
proposals if the rogues in town didn’t live in fear of her brothers, both
physically and socially.  One raised eyebrow from the Duke of Lynwood could
freeze someone out for the rest of the season.  And the man was also good with
his fives.
    William, Duke of Lynwood.  Named for the Conqueror, and
known as Liam to a select few.  At two and thirty, he was an enigma to many.  A
wealthy duke, one of the best prizes on the marriage mart, Liam spent most of
his time at Lynwood in the country, only returning to London for Parliament and
to do his duties as Elizabeth’s eldest brother.  He was more rugged looking
than the rest of them.  His nose had been broken more than once during his wild
years at Cambridge.  But when duty called after the death of their parents,
Liam put the past behind him and calmly took up the reins.  If his current
quiet life didn’t exactly jibe with his wild youth, no one dared to question
him about it.  Or if they did, they didn’t do it twice.
    “What say you?” asked Arthur again.  “Gaming or whores?”
    “We