The Devil Rogue Read Online Free PDF Page A

underneath .
    She’d been sound asleep, her back to ward the door . All he could see was the shape of her body underneath the thin blanket . . . her shoulder, the downward slope to her tiny waist, then up again to the curve of her hip .
    He’d retreated into the hall, feeling like a thief and a voyeur in his own house . O ut of some misplaced sense of propriety, he ha d quietly closed the door. For a moment – only a moment – h e’d suffered from a guilty conscience for what he was doing . . . for what he was planning to do . But the memory of what she and her father had done renewed his resolve once more.
    The sound of her muffled voice interrupted his thoughts.
    “I’m up!”
    He heard her mutter something else.
    “What did you say, princess ? ” His narrowed gaze bored into the surface of the closed door. Had she just called him a b loody barbarian?
    For such a delicate creature, she sure had an interesting vocabulary. If she considered him a barbarian, he would definitely oblige her.
    “ I said I’m getting up ,” came her muffled reply . “ You can go away, now.”
    You can go away now? The impudent little chit! He ought to go in there right now and show her who was in charge.
    “You’ve got ten minutes to get your scrawny ass downstairs, your highness . ” S tr i d ing angrily back down the hall , Ian tried not to think of her deliciously curv ed behind.
    How dare he speak to her like that ! If she wasn’t feeling so poorly, Angela would have thrown that door open and tossed the basin of water in his too handsome face . Instead, she listened as the sound of his footsteps receded . W hen she was sure he was well out of earshot, she murmured under her breath, “ Well, he is a Bloody barbarian . ” She then used the cool water to bathe her own face .
    How could he have heard that? She’d barely whispered it ! The man obviously had excellent hearing . She’d do well to remember it.
    She reached for the gown she ’d arrived in . Was she to have nothing else to wear for the next three months ? The thing would be in tatters by that time . She would just have to insist Blackridge allow her to send for her things , along with Rosemary’s.
    What was she doing here ? What had she been thinking, to make such a rash decision ? Angela didn’t know anything about this man, Blackridge , who had a reputation as a philandering womanizer . He was a heartless rogue, moving from one affair to the next, without a care to the consequences .
    And here she was, in his home, under his authority, with no place else to go . At this very moment, her own reputation was a total ruin, for she was certain word had already spread of her arrival here . S he’d been so desperate to leave her father’s house she hadn’t cared about the consequences .
    Was she no better than Blackridge , then?
    Angela rejected the idea that she could have anything in common with him. She certainly didn’t flit from one man’s bed to another’s. Her situation was entirely different. She’d had no choice.
    But that wasn’t true. She was a grown woman, and had made a conscious decision to stay with him for the next three months. There was no one to blame but herself in this. She would go forward, let it play out until the end. She would do what was necessary to gain the freedom she desired so much .
    With the amount of money Blackridge was willing to pay, Angela would be able to support herself comfortably . Once she had fulfilled their bargain , she w ould move on and forget it had ever happened.
    Angela’s thoughts settled on the reason she was here in the first place . She would be sharing Blackridge’s bed and her body soon . Her mouth went dry . S he swallow ed the lump that had formed in her throat . She knew next to nothing of men, and absolutely nothing at all about performing the duties he expected of her . The idea that she would be lying naked with such a virile man , whose reputation as a skilled lover was unsurpassed, sent an