Something Scandalous Read Online Free PDF Page A

won’t wish to leave.”
    “Your brother is a fool.”
    “I know that.”
    “What I want is in America,” Will said, thinking of Abigail’s sweet, innocent face. “Selling off everything will enable me to have what I want, and give you all a better life. So chin up, boy. I just need a couple of months.”
    “James said you could have all that here, and more. Being a duke is a really important thing.”
    “I thought we already established that James is a fool.”
    “We did,” Michael replied with a giggle.
    Will still hadn’t become accustomed to the lower register of Michael’s voice. At fourteen, Michael was a gangly jumble of half boy and half man.
    “Many of your elder siblings have idolized the idea of what England is truly like,” Will whispered.
    “I haven’t.”
    “No, you haven’t. But James, Ellie, and Lucy certainly do. That is why I insisted that all of you come with me. You need to see the England I remember. The poverty, the class system, the fact that people don’t get ahead here without a title…like your father, and mine.”
    “But you have a title, Will.”
    Will sighed and rubbed his stepbrother’s hair. “And if I didn’t, I would be nothing here, which is why I cannot stay.”
    Michael nodded. “Good night, Will.”
    He walked back downstairs, reached for the door-knob, and stopped. Had Kenneth said the second door on the left, or on the right? Will was so beyond tired he couldn’t remember. He opened the door to the left and a light, feminine gasp sounded from near the fireplace. She turned around and glared at him.
    “What are you doing in my bedchamber?”
    The small fire behind her displayed the shadows of her modest curves, and the glow flamed her long hair into beams of crimson. Her heart-shaped face, while covered in freckles, was completed with a pert nose and lips that were not too full and not too thin. Perfection. Her green eyes looked like emeralds shimmering in the dim light.
    He truly hadn’t taken an account of her beauty this evening when he’d been too preoccupied with other things. Or perhaps her irritable behavior had been the only thing he noticed.
    “Your Grace?” she squeaked.
    “I apologize, Elizabeth. I was looking for my room.”
    “It’s across the hall. The duke’s bedchamber is a full suite.” She crossed her arms over her chest as if to hide the fullness of her breasts. Instead, it only seemed to plump them.
    Desire flared but he attempted to tamp it down as quickly as it had fired. He was not attracted to the shrew. No matter how her lush body seemed to call to him. His heart had settled on Abigail.
    Not that his body seemed to note that fact. His erection pressed against the cotton of his drawers, desperate for release from its cloth prison.
    “Your Grace!”
    He swallowed hard, attempting to gain a measure of control of his sudden yearning. “Good night, Elizabeth.”
    He forced his feet to move toward the door, when all he really wanted was to step closer to her.
     
    Elizabeth sipped her chocolate and then broke off a bite of toast. He had seen her in her nightclothes last night. She’d felt the heat of his gaze, hotter than the fire behind her, burning into her. While she’d tried her best to cover her erect nipples from his view, she doubted her success. His gaze appeared to settle on her breasts.
    And she’d liked it.
    For the first time in her entire life, she felt something odd and strangely appealing when a man looked at her. Not a man, a ruffian. He smelled foul, like a man who hadn’t bathed in weeks. Of course, he probably hadn’t the chance to clean much on the ship.
    She was ill, that was surely the cause of this sudden departure from her normal manner. All this worrying over finding her mother’s hidden diary had caused her to lose her senses. Most notably her sense of smell, if she found that barbarian attractive, she thought with disdain. Hopefully, he would have enough intelligence to bathe this morning.
    Now with