No Good Duke Goes Unpunished Read Online Free PDF Page B

head. “Angry does not even begin to describe the depths of my emotion.”
    She nodded, skipping backward across the room once more. “Fair enough. Furious.”
    He advanced. “That’s closer.”
    “Irate.”
    “That, too.”
    She looked behind her, saw the sideboard looming. This wasn’t a very large room, after all. “Livid.”
    “And that.”
    She felt the hard oak at her back. Trapped again. “I can repair it,” she said, desperate to regain the upper hand. “What’s broken.” He stopped, and for a moment, she had his full attention. “If I am not dead, you are not”— a killer —“what they say you are.” He did not reply, and she rushed to fill the silence. “That’s why I’m here. I shall come forward. Show myself to Society. I shall prove you’re not what they say you are.”
    He set his glass on the sideboard. “You shall.”
    She released a breath she had not known she was holding. He was not as unforgiving as she had imagined he might be. She nodded. “Yes, I will. I will tell everyone—”
    “You shall tell them the truth.”
    She hesitated at the words, hating them, the way they threatened. And still she nodded. “I shall tell them the truth.” It would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but she would do it.
    She hadn’t a choice.
    It would ruin her, but it might be enough to save what was important.
    She had one chance to negotiate with Temple. She had to do it correctly. “On one condition.”
    He laughed. A great, booming guffaw of laughter. Her brow furrowed at the noise. She did not like the sound, especially not when it ended with a wicked, humorless smile. “You think to barter with me?” He was close enough to touch. “You think tonight has put me in a negotiating frame of mind?”
    “I disappeared once before. I can do it again.” The threat did not endear her to him.
    “I will find you.” The words were so serious, so honest, that she did not doubt him.
    Still, she soldiered on. “Perhaps, but I’ve hidden for twelve years, and I’ve become quite good at it. And even if you did find me, the aristocracy shan’t simply take your word for it that I am alive. You need me as a willing participant in this play.”
    His gaze narrowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. When he spoke, the words came like ice. “I assure you, I will never need you.”
    She ignored him. Forged ahead. “I shall tell the truth. Come forward with proof of my birth. And you shall forgive my brother’s debt.”
    There was a moment of silence as the words fell between them, and for those fleeting seconds, Mara thought she might have succeeded in negotiating with him.
    “No.”
    Panic flared. He couldn’t refuse. She lifted her chin. “I think it’s a fair trade.”
    “A fair trade for destroying my life ?”
    Irritation flared. He was one of the wealthiest men in London. In Britain, for heaven’s sake. With women tossing themselves into his arms and men desperate to gain his confidence. He retained his title, his entail, and now had an entire empire to his name. What did he know of ruined lives?
    “And how many lives have you destroyed?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t, but unable to keep herself from it. “You are no saint, my lord.”
    “Whatever I’ve done—” he started, then stopped, changing tack with another huff of disbelief. “Enough. You are as much an idiot now as you were when you were sixteen if you think you hold a position to negotiate the terms of our agreement.”
    She had thought that at the start, of course, but one look into this man’s cold, angry gaze made her see her miscalculation. This man did not want absolution.
    He wanted vengeance.
    And she was the path by which he would get it.
    “Don’t you see, Mara,” He leaned in and whispered, “You’re mine, now.”
    The words unsettled, but she refused to show him. He wasn’t a killer. She knew that better than anyone.
    He might not have killed you . . . but you haven’t any idea what