The Dangerous Love of a Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page B

smiled at his silent humour.
    “You are going to wed her then?” Mark clarified.
    “I’ve no choice. The duns are on my tail. I need to marry money. She’s interested, available, and she has it. Plus she is remarkably kind to the eye.”
    “Kind to the eye.” A sarcastic smile twisted Harry’s lips. “That is lacklustre. The girl’s the darling of society. They all fawn over her. She’s stunning. I would have a go at her if I thought I stood a chance, but she’ll not look twice at me. You however…”
    “You have the looks and the knack, Drew,” Peter expounded, “while we are all left to petty jealousy.”
    Drew laughed. “I have not won her yet, and you are just as capable.”
    “No. But we all know you will win her. I would not even waste a wager on it,” Mark enthused.
    “The question is, what will you do with her when you have her?” Harry laughed. “Now that is what I would like to see, however, after that, what on earth will you do with a wife?”
    Drew looked past his friends at his small living quarters.
    His rooms in the Albany were a decent enough bachelor’s residence, but he would need something more once he’d wed. He longed for a property of his own. Somewhere outside of London and he would need space to lose a woman in. He did not wish to be crowded. In the last year, when he’d thought of marrying Miss Marlow, he had never considered the detail beyond the wedding night and receiving the cheque.
    Still once he’d wed, he’d have her dowry and he could buy a bigger property, perhaps something with land, to make a profit from. She would understand that life and fill her time without his assistance.

    His hands itched to be out of town and free of his reliance on Peter. His debts had swelled in the last year, barely anyone allowed him credit now and so more and more he’d become reliant on Peter’s kindness. It unmanned him, but he refused to return to earning his living through sex.
    But how the hell would he fit in a life with a wife…He had not one daisy petal of an idea how to manage land, let alone how to manage with a wife.
    All the wives he knew spent their time cuckolding their inattentive husbands.
    But that was why he’d settled on Mary, chosen Mary – he thought her different to those women. He’d watched her family for a year. They were all in what society deemed love matches.
    Love – that word was false, in his experience. A non-entity. People did not love. They used the word to wound and hurt.
    His mother declared she loved the Marquis, but cuckolded him constantly. While on the occasions the Marquis came to town he spent his hours with chorus girls. His mother’s favoured companions were the sons of society and she was regularly in town.
    Their behaviour was typical; he knew that because his mother’s friends had begun his initiation into their world of fornication when he’d been fifteen. Ten years on and society had not changed.
    But he had changed.
    “Drew, I’m sure you’re thinking of what the woman will be like in your bed, but you will not be saying goodbye to her come morning. I said, what will you do with her once you’re wed?”
    He had no idea. What the hell will I do with a wife?
    Lock her away somewhere so she will not lay with other men. Or could he truly trust her.
    She was not like them. Miss Marlow was his best hope of fidelity and yet she would not be in love with him… and he would not be in love with her. Theirs would not be a love match… He did not know how to love, he did not even really believe in it.

    Perhaps if all failed he would follow his false-father’s path and leave her to get on with it, find a country sanctuary for himself and rooms in town for her.
    But quiet words whispered in his head, she would not be false.
    Deep down, he hoped so hard.
    That desire was another secret he was keeping from his friends. They thought him a pleasure loving rogue. He was still, in a way, but…
    God, how they’d laugh if they knew a man