Ripe for Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page B

her favors, and too cunning by far. A lady in name only. Not that it mattered. Padrig would have served
     up the Virgin herself if it meant saving his sister.
    Panic welled up, flooding his chest, freezing his limbs. This couldn’t be happening. She’d stranded him in the middle of nowhere
     with no means of paying the coachman or returning to London. The queasy feeling deepened, threatening to bring his lunch back
     up.
    All he’d been asked to do was deliver Lady BoudiceaVaughn to Gretna. One simple thing. One simple damn thing and his debts would be cleared. He’d have the title to his family’s
     estate back in his possession, and his little sister would never hear from Mr. George Granby again. The world would never
     learn that Maeve had spent the better part of three months as Mr. Granby’s mistress in London in some ill-conceived plan of
     her own to clear Padrig’s debts.
    Padrig had just wanted Granby gone. Him and all the trouble he’d brought. And if someone had to pay the price, better it was
     a stranger than Maeve. A duke would have the means to sugarcoat his daughter’s disgrace. Padrig didn’t have any such luxury,
     and neither did his sister.
    What the hell was he going to do now?

CHAPTER 6
    B eau eyed the façade of The Pig and Whistle with trepidation. The sign swung in the wind, threatening to come free of its mooring
     at any second. The half-timbered walls appeared to be slowly sagging out from under the thatched roof, spreading like a warm
     pudding freshly loosed from the mould.
    “They won’t ask questions, and that’s all that matters.” Sandison’s breath caressed her ear. His jaw brushed hers, the abrasive
     touch racing through her, making her tighten and pulse.
    It was indecent the way he made her feel. The gossips could label her wanton, and they’d be right. Oh, so very right… She’d
     been all too aware of him since she’d turned and found him watching her like she was a Boxing Day feast.
    He’d been calling her brat and bantling, as though she were still a child, but he certainly wasn’t looking at her as if she
     were one. Finally. She’d wanted him to look at her in exactly that manner for nearly as long as she couldremember, since before she’d even really comprehended what it meant… and now that he had, she had no idea what to do next.
    Or rather, she had a very good idea—she had a sister-in-law who had been a courtesan, after all—but the odds of her brother’s
     friend doing anything as suicidal as seducing her were nil. Only he didn’t know the truth. She was already ruined. Nothing
     he did from this point forward could hurt her.
    But it could hurt him.
    She breathed in the scent of him: sandalwood and amber. He swung her down from the saddle, and her eyes pricked with heat.
     She could see her path out, her chance to stay in England with her family, to avoid exile, to salvage something of the life
     that she’d planned and wanted. But it was only possible if she sacrificed Sandison. And it would leave her at his mercy after
     she’d done so.
    He leapt from the saddle, the skirt of his greatcoat flying out, shedding water like a bird’s wing. Together they led Monty
     into what passed for the Pig and Whistle’s stable. Sandison rousted the stable boy with his foot and handed over the gelding’s
     reins.
    “There’ll be a shilling for you in the morning if he’s seen to properly. Rub him down, give him fresh water, and feed him.”
    Sandison tossed his saddlebags over his shoulder and led her into the inn. Beau’s knees nearly gave out as they mounted the
     steps. She was really going to do this. There was no other choice. Sandison propped her up and pushed her forward into the
     nearly empty taproom.
    A greasy man in a leather apron rounded the bar.“A room,” Sandison said, a hand nestled at her waist as though it belonged there. Heat pulsed through the wet fabric, radiating
     into her skin. “And dinner. Whatever the ordinary is will be