One Scandalous Kiss Read Online Free PDF

“I must know why.”
    “Why?” Before he could consider whether she mocked him by returning his own question, he was struck by her voice. It was strong and rich. As distinctive as the color of her hair. And it belied the embarrassment in her eyes and the way she tucked herself in the corner, as far from him as possible.
    “Do I not have the right?” As he watched the emotion in her eyes shift from embarrassment to acknowledgment, he noted that their color was inscrutable. Gray? Green? Good grief, what did it matter?
    “Yes, my lord.” For the first time since entering the carriage, she settled back against the leather seat. “You deserve an explanation.”
    His eagerness to hear her speak again made him lean forward, an elbow on each knee, hands clasped before him.
    The maddening woman tortured him with more silence and by sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. He stared at the pierced pink skin until she let out a pained little groan of frustration and finally turned to him.
    “It was a mistake.” Her husky voice released the words with a kind of finality, as if the whole matter was suddenly clear. She even had the temerity to lift her chin a fraction.
    Lucius took it as a challenge.
    “I see. You mistook me, then. It was another man you intended to accost with your mouth.”
    “Did I accost you, my lord?”
    Her eyes widened and he was gratified to finally identify them as green. The darkest of greens, like the murky depths of a winter pond. He quirked his eyebrow and saw her deflate.
    “Yes, I did. Forgive me. It seemed such a small thing, but I see now that it must have caused you a great deal of mortification in front of all your friends.”
    Lucius was torn between allowing himself a moment of righteous indignation and assuring the strange young woman she’d done him no real harm.
    “They aren’t my friends.” He didn’t bother to add that his aunt, sister, and brother-in-law had been in attendance. Marcus and Julia had never caused a bit of scandal and held their position in society securely. Aunt Augusta was beloved as a confidante and renowned as a hostess. Being associated with this event would only cause a bit of gossip, surely. The wags would be malicious, perhaps, but not destructive.
    Because he kept to himself and had only come into his title following Julian’s death two years before, the gossips had little to say about him, and Lucius was grateful for it.
    The bluestocking lifted a hand to her mouth, drawing his attention there, and he noticed her dark eyes had taken on a glassy sheen. He shivered at the notion that she might actually start weeping. He couldn’t abide a tearful woman. Clearing his throat loudly, Lucius waved a hand toward her in a gesture of absolution.
    “You have my forgiveness, Miss . . . ?”
    She took a deep breath before answering his implied question.
    “Wright, my lord. Jessamin Wright.” He knew the impropriety of such an introduction, but Miss Wright seemed to take no notice.
    “Miss Wright.” He weighed her surname on his tongue, but it was her first name that he repeated in his head. It was far too sibilant and ornate for such a shabbily dressed woman, but he sensed this woman was much more interesting than her layers of plain cotton and wool suggested.
    “Will this cause you a great deal of scandal, my lord?”
    He opened his mouth and then caught himself on the verge of reassuring her. What power did this woman wield? In the space of seconds she’d once again turned his—quite justified—ire into an urge to put her mind at ease. And was he truly to believe the effect of her actions concerned her now? She should have thought of that before letting him taste the sweetness of her mouth.
    No, this bluestocking wasn’t at all what she seemed. Lucius’s desire to suss her out grew with every moment that passed between them.
    “No, Miss Wright. I’ll be returning to the country soon. I haven’t a care for what they say about me in London.”
    It