Seducing the Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page B

length of time—slow, relaxed movements of his chest, in and out, in and out—anything to keep him from dwelling on how close she was, how easy it would be to reach out his hand and stroke her hair.
    An eternity later, Charlotte sighed in her sleep and twisted toward him, her arm flung out so that her fingers brushed across his ribs. His breath seized in his chest, the calmness he had strived for immediately disappearing.
    It took him almost another ten minutes to resign himself to sleeping in the chair on the opposite side of the room—close enough so he could prevent her from trying to escape in the middle of the night, yet far enough away to have a chance of resisting the temptation her restless body offered.
    Philip leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes, but he could not dismiss the memory of Charlotte as she’d stood in front of him earlier, her eyes promising wickedness, her palm pressed against his wildly racing heart.
    As self-centered as it seemed to be now, he’d always assumed her harlot performance was all a show of bravado for his benefit, meant to make him succumb to her demands.
    He knew she’d taken lovers over the years—a woman wasn’t rumored to have slept with more than a dozen men without there being some truth to the accusation—but he couldn’t fault her for it. After all, he’d dismissed his mistress only six months ago.
    But he’d deluded himself into thinking that Charlotte did it only to spite him; it appeared that she actually enjoyed her life as a fallen woman.
    She no longer possessed any of the awkward shyness she had exhibited around him at the age of nineteen, that small flaw in the midst of her vibrancy and exuberance which had made her susceptible to a duke’s flattery and attention.
    Charlotte was confident now. She was independent.
    She didn’t need him at all, and that scared the hell out of him.

Chapter 4

    “ Y er Grace, Yer Grace.”
    Charlotte growled and batted at the hand tapping her shoulder.
    “Yer Grace, please. He said we must be in the courtyard in ten minutes.”
    Charlotte rolled over and cracked one eyelid open. The room was awash in lavender predawn shadows. Groaning, she promptly shut it again and wondered why she’d never considered murder as an option to rid herself of her overbearing, despotic husband.
    It was criminal to expect her to rise from bed this early.
    Charlotte lifted an arm and waved her maid away with a flick of her wrist. The pathetically weak motion did no more than dislodge the coverlet from her shoulder, which subsequently made her grumble at the rush of cold air surging inside her warm haven.
    Anne’s worried footsteps paced around the side of the bed. “We’ve only seven minutes more, Yer Grace. He said he would be angry if we were late. Oh, please sit up. I will help you with everything else. Yer Grace? Yer Grace?”
    Charlotte burrowed deeper beneath the covers. “You may tell that old fusspot to go bugger himself.”
    “Oh, dear.”
    A meager light flickered across her eyelids, and Charlotte opened her eyes once more to find the maid at the window, worrying the curtain with anxious fingers as she peeked at the courtyard below.
    “He has his timepiece out.”
    Charlotte grunted and flung her pillow over her head.
    “Five more minutes. And he’s frowning something awful now.”
    “Hmm. How dreadful.”
    Although she lay inert in the bed, pretending to be entirely unconcerned with Philip’s mandate or the passage of time, she could not keep her heart from beating faster with each warning the maid called out.
    She had woken in the middle of the night with a fantastic retort to his callous words. It was much better than her previous comment about his station, and she was dying to have another confrontation with him now.
    “Three min—” Anne cut herself off, gasping.
    Charlotte jerked upward, swatting her hair out of her face. “What is it?”
    Her eyes darted from the swaying curtain to the