Tempt the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

overtly theatrical behavior made him want to laugh. She dared him to explode into outrage, but she picked the wrong target. He could play games with the best of them. It was what made him a brilliant diplomat.
    â€œWhy not?” he said smoothly. “Lord Peregrine, I don’t believe I’ve met your friends.”
    While Montjoy performed introductions, Erith watched Olivia pour him a drink from the decanter on the Boulle sideboard. Her attire was so severely masculine. Why did it make her seem more a woman? His eyes dwelt on her legs. His guess yesterday had been right—they were long and slender. He savored the prospect of those legs wrapped around him while he thrust into her.
    He emerged from his brief daydream to find her passing him the glass. She very deliberately stroked her fingers across his. It was the first time she’d done anything overtly seductive, and his skin tingled under her touch.
    He wanted her immediately. Since he’d met her, the delay had chafed. Now it became unbearable.
    But for the moment, bear it he must.
    She lifted her cigar again, drew on it, then exhaled so a drift of blue smoke wreathed her angular features. Features that merged to form a more compelling whole than conventional beauty ever could. No wonder she had every man in London in a flap.
    â€œLord Erith, this is Sir Percival Martineau,” Lord Peregrine said with a distinct snap. Clearly he’d been speaking while Erith stared lost into his mistress’s fathomless eyes.
    â€œSir Percival.” God help him if he needed to remember anyone’s name other than Olivia’s. She’d bewitched him.
    Bewitched?
    Hell, what was wrong with him? She was just another female. He’d grab her, he’d take her, he’d discover there was nothing new between her legs or in her head. He’d had somany women since his wife died, and none had engaged his heart. However much they’d engaged his body. His body, which currently hummed as though a mountebank ran an electrical current through it. He couldn’t remember a female stirring him up like this since his first season. When tender emotions of love and respect had tempered his male excitement.
    Good God, how could he link this harlot with Joanna? This conniving witch would never touch his finer feelings. Although she was welcome to touch anything else she liked.
    Oh, yes, please. Raw expectation scurried down his spine.
    She gestured coolly to a sofa. “Would you like to sit down?”
    â€œNo, I want to talk to you. In private.”
    She shrugged, placed her glass on the mantel and stubbed out her cigar. “As you wish. This way.”
    He followed her through a corridor and into a library. Lamplight gleamed softly on richly colored leather covers and picked out gold lettering on rows of books.
    Olivia moved forward and turned to face him, leaning with a grace that stopped his breath against the desk behind her. “What is it?
    He realized he was smiling. “This room. It’s the only one I’ve admired in this house.”
    Surprisingly, she smiled back. A real smile conveying a wealth of affection for the man who owned the library. A shaft of unpleasant emotion stabbed Erith. Not jealousy. He was never jealous. And why be jealous when his suspicions about her host had firmed into certainty?
    â€œPerry doesn’t read much. He hasn’t redecorated in here yet.”
    â€œYou like it,” he said softly. It was the first room he’d seen her in that didn’t jar with his instincts about her. He slouched against the doorjamb and studied her.
    â€œYes, I do.”
    She bent her head and light caught bronze strands in her thick hair. She really was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. More beautiful at this moment because her usual self-consciousness was absent.
    â€œThere’s a library in the house I found.” When he’d seen the neat book-lined room in York Street, he’d assumed his