Taste of the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

brother’s son, and that you and I are very good friends.
    Indeed, as far as anyone is concerned, Reggie shall be your houseguest. Uncle Jediah’s brother left his home when he was quite young, as I understand it. Jediah never had much contact with him.”
    “Then what makes you think he’ll welcome you?”
    Ginny threw the apple in the air, neatly catching it.
    “Easier, still. I shall tell him I have just come into an enormous inheritance and desperately need the guidance of my dear uncle.”
    Ginny smiled like a cat. “The Toad will never resist the temptation.”
    With those words, she took a big bite of the juicy apple.
    The significance of the scene was not lost on Henley. “Ah, but do you lead him out of the garden, my dear Eve, or not?”
    Ginny grinned. “The age-old debate.”
    Henley laughed uproariously.
     
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    And then, yet another coincidence occurred from our table talk at Gingridge's. Another meeting took place that would soon result in altering my life forever. You see, I was quite right to be suspicious of Jediah's behavior that night; this rendezvous involved the ever-popular topic of prurient conversation amongst the ton: that unprincipled rake, Lord Devon...
     
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Chapter Four
     
    Islemoor Hall
     
    Lord Devon faced the man he hated most in this world.
    The Duke of Islemoor, Jonathan Trent, sat behind his walnut Chippendale desk, gazing out of the floor to ceiling windows to the manicured lawns below.
    It was unlike the old duke to let his mind wander during a meeting. Usually, he mastered every moment, using the time to berate, yell at, and hopefully shame his grandson into a change of behavior. None of this had ever worked on Tyler, but that never stopped the Duke from going through the ritual.
    Today the Duke seemed somewhat preoccupied.
    Tyler was confident he knew the reason. Lord knew, he had done everything in his power to put that expression on the old bastard’s face.
    Brushing at nonexistent lint on his royal blue velveteen breeches, he rested back in his seat, masking his true emotions with a droll expression. Lord Devon was always cultured, mannered, in control, and faintly bored with his surroundings.
    “Something bothering you, Grandfather?” Tyler’s low, fluid voice naturally took on the insouciant, lazy tone he had mastered so well over the years.
    The Duke turned sharply at the sound of his grandson’s voice, as if he had momentarily forgotten that he had sent for him. Then his piercing brown eyes fell to the mound of bills on his desk.
    He had lost another ship!
    Is there no end to this dark plague of misfortune? And now this wastrel of a grandson was sitting before him like a preening peacock!
    “Yes, there is something bothering me.” The old man’s focus shifted back to his grandson. “Have you seen this new batch of debts you have accrued?” The Duke’s hand slashed across his desk. “’Tis beyond the pall! What can you be thinking, Tyler?”
    Lord Devon yawned while he carefully retied the ribbon that held his black hair in a perfect queue. “You can afford it, Grandfather.”
    The Duke slammed his palms down on the desk. “No one can afford to pay these kind of debts indefinitely!
    Look at these receipts from your tailor– who requires forty-five silk shirts in the same cut? Have you gone mad?”
    Tyler shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned. “One must stay in fashion.”
    “And this from that gamboling establishment you’re so found of– a marker for five thousand pounds! ‘Tis unthinkable!”
    Tyler stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I had a run of bad luck.”
    His grandfather pierced him with a furious glare.
    “You are a run of bad luck.”
    The Duke took a deep breath, then leaned back in his own chair, puzzled at the constant shiftless behavior of his only living blood relation. He wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to the promising youth the lad had been. All the rakehell