Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman Read Online Free PDF

although toward what destination he hadn’t a clue.
    She hurried to catch up, which wasn’t difficult. He suspected her legs were as long as his, although they were no doubt more shapely and appealing. He tried to remember them wrapped around his waist, and he couldn’t. Had she cried out his name or whispered it? He would have spoken hers numerous times as he murmured sweet words near her ear. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.
    Nothing stirred within him now, nothing at all.
    “How old is the babe?” he asked.
    He couldn’t recall the child’s name. His mother had mentioned it, but he’d paid little attention, assuming at first that the babe was of no importance.
    Again, he’d surprised her. This time it was the deep furrow in her delicate brow that alerted him. Damnation. What exactly had their relationship been? Had they taken quiet moments to converse? Or had they sought to become lost in frenzied lovemaking to escape the horrors that surrounded them?
    While he had no memory of what had come before he awoke in that hospital, he’d witnessed enough while recovering there to know that hell had arrived on earth with a mighty vengeance.
    “A little over three months,” she finally responded.
    He heard the hesitation in her voice, the discomfort over having to reveal what he obviously should have known. Had she told him she was with babe? Or should he have been able to calculate the months since their last tryst? Had he offered to marry her? Dear God, don’t let her realize that I don’t remember her.
    It had never been his way to insult or harm women. They had always been his passion, his raison d’être . He’d appreciated all they had to offer and had made damn sure they were aware of his admiration for them. He’d never knowingly caused one to regret being with him.
    Except possibly for Claire. He’d sought to spare her from his brother, and in so doing, he’d given her years of torment and loneliness, sadness and abject guilt. While he’d gone on to satisfy the ladies of London with his sexual prowess.
    But Claire and Westcliffe had reconciled, and Stephen had never known her to be happier. It was a condition he thought the woman walking beside him might never achieve. He could see she was burdened, and he had little doubt that his actions had only added to the weight she carried on her narrow shoulders. Yet he sensed she was made of stern stuff and would not topple. He suspected that more than the shell of her beauty had attracted him, that she was one of those rare creatures who had the ability to appeal to him on a much deeper level. Yet he’d always avoided them, had not wanted to become entangled with a woman from whom he might desire more than physical release. So why had he been unable to resist becoming involved with her?
    Surely, if he had told her he loved her, she’d be giddy with delight that he was walking beside her instead of lying beneath six feet of dirt.
    “Why did you wait so long to bring him here?” he asked. A safe question because certainly he’d have not known her reasoning.
    She seemed to be searching the barren gardens for her answer. He recalled a time when he’d had the ability to charm a lady into revealing everything , from her deepest secrets to the dimple just above her rounded bottom. He’d lost more than his memory. He’d lost his wicked ways. He should have had Miss Dawson laughing by now, but he’d forgotten how to laugh as well, couldn’t remember the last time he’d made such a wondrous sound. Had even wanted to.
    “I wasn’t . . . I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to handle the matter,” she confessed. “You weren’t aware that . . .” Her voice trailed off, and a blush deepened the ruddiness of her cheeks where the cold had begun to chafe them.
    So she hadn’t told him she was with child. Thank God, for that. He’d not abandoned her then, not left her to face it alone. Strange, the comfort he drew from that knowledge. At least the man he’d been in