The Duke's Cinderella Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

Smith—Hawk now felt a need to thwart his hostess.
    Maybe because she had—deliberately?—drawn attention to the gown that was making Jane so unhappy. Or maybe because of the way she had spoken so condescendingly of Jane’s impoverished father. Whatever the reason, Hawk found himself unwilling to suffer Lady Sulby’s singularly ingratiating attentions even for the short time it would take to escort her to the dining room.
    Although the stricken look on Jane Smith’s face as she became the open focus of the angrily hard glitter of Lady Sulby’s gaze told him that it had perhaps been unwise on his part to show such a preference.
    A realisation that was immediately confirmed by Jane Smith. ‘Really, Your Grace, you must not.’
    Hawk gave her a hard, searching glance, noting the slight pallor to her cheeks and the look almost of desperation now in those deep green eyes. Jane Smith, unlike almost every other woman of Hawk’s acquaintance, most definitely did not want the Duke of Stourbridge to single her out for such attention. In fact, those green eyes were silently pleading with him not to do so.
    ‘In that case…Lady Sulby?’ He held out his arm, the polite smile on his lips not reaching the icy hardness of his eyes.
    His hostess seemed almost to have to drag her attention away from Jane Smith before turning an ingratiating smile in his general direction. ‘Certainly, Your Grace.’ She placed her possessively grasping hand onhis arm before sweeping regally through the room ahead of her other guests.
    Jane stood back and watched them, her heart beating erratically in her chest, having easily recognised the look of promised retribution in Lady Sulby’s gaze before she had turned and graciously accepted the Duke’s arm.
    Why had the Duke offered to escort Jane in to dinner? He of all people had to know that as the Sulbys’ principal titled guest, etiquette demanded that he escort Lady Sulby. To do anything else would cause something of a sensation.
    But, oh, how Jane wished she could have accepted. How—despite the cruelty of his laughter at her expense—she would have loved to be the one who was swept regally from the room on the arm of the aristocratic Duke of Stourbridge. He was so haughtily attractive, so powerfully immediate, that Jane had no doubt those austere and yet mesmerising features would appear in her dreams later tonight.
    ‘What do you mean by making such a spectacle of yourself, Jane?’ Olivia had appeared at her side, her fan raised so that her acerbic tone and disdainful expression could not to be observed by the other guests as they prepared to follow Lady Sulby and the Duke through to the dining room. ‘Mama is going to be absolutely furious with you for deliberately attracting the Duke’s attention in that way.’
    Jane gasped at the unfairness of the accusation. ‘But I did nothing to—’
    ‘Do not lie, Jane. We all saw you making a fool of yourself by openly flirting with the man in that shameless way.’ Olivia glared, the tightness of her mouth giving her a look very much like her mother’s at that moment. ‘Mama is going to be very angry if your behaviour has caused the Duke any embarassment,’ she told Jane warningly. ‘That gown looks absolutely horrid on you, by the way,’ she added cuttingly, before walking away to smilingly take the arm of the waiting Anthony Ambridge, the elegible grandson of Lady Ambridge.
    Dinner was, as Jane could have predicted, an absolutely miserable time for her. Lord Tillton sat to the left of her, and constantly tried to put his hand on her thigh until she put a stop to it by digging her nails into his wrist, and a deaf and elderly woman sat the to her right, talking in a monologue that thankfully required no response on Jane’s part—because she was sure she would not have heard her even if she had attempted a reply.
    To make matters worse, the Duke, on Lady Sulby’s right, with Olivia seated next to him—two blonde sentinels guarding a