The Love List Read Online Free PDF

hardly more than a whisper.
    Instinct told him to turn away.  He could see that she was waiting for it.  And by God, not complicating the situation further was the least he could do for her.  He set off, reminding himself that he’d accomplished at least part of what he’d set out to do.  Tru was safer than he had been, at least. 
    Yet he could find no solace in the thought.  Marstoke had been right.  He had learned the incredible folly of interfering in the lives of others.  He’d carefully arranged his life to avoid it.  It had been years since he’d run the risk.
    Until tonight.
    He hoped to God there would be no karmic reprisals.  Unease settled over his shoulders.  This night’s work felt like only another burden for him to add to the load he already carried. 
    But it was lighter than it might have been.  Thanks to that sprite of a girl.  That was the thought that lingered as he headed for home.
    * * *
     
    Brynne slumped against the wall and watched him walk away.  The Duke of Aldmere.  He was as handsome as rumor painted him, broodingly so, like a warrior or a king.  That was what he reminded her of—a monarch of old, with thick, dark hair and a large, muscle-corded frame that not even formal evening clothes could completely civilize.  She rubbed her arm with her one free hand, still feeling the pulse and heat of excitement brought on by so much angular and masculine beauty.  And yet it was true what they said.  He wore an air of aloof distance like a royal mantle.
    Heaven knew he was as canny and calculating as a head of state, too.  A scant few minutes in his presence and he’d sized her up, distilled her life’s greatest crisis down to deceptive simplicity and then molded it into a weapon to use against Lord Marstoke.  A ruthless, brilliant maneuver she was in no position to appreciate. 
    A weapon.  They had both used the term.  When had she ceased to be a young woman with hopes and dreams and become an object?  An instrument to be used by a man against his enemies?
    Aldmere disappeared in the direction of the ballroom.  Even as she resented the man, she couldn’t help but follow him with her eyes.  Beyond dark, good looks, he possessed an air of steadiness and stability that called to her.  But there was something else, too.  Something missing.  As if he were a puzzle, lacking the last few vital pieces.  She wondered, if they’d met under different circumstances, if she might have been able to discover those last, absent elements.
    She released a long breath.  Surely the duke already had people in his life to look after him.  It would seem he had a brother, at least, whom he was close to.  And as much as she admired the duke, she envied his brother more.  Did he know how fortunate he was to have such an unswerving champion?
    The muffled clinking of ill-used crystal echoed from the library at her back.  Clutching her torn bodice, Brynne pushed herself away from the wall.  She kept to the shadows and wished fervently that Marstoke would drown in Lord Dalton’s brandy. 
    She couldn’t count on the marquess to oblige her, in this or anything else.  She had to find Lady Tillney and get home.  Abruptly her prayers shifted.  She could only hope that once there, she found the same sort of champion for herself.
     

Two
     
    “I know I occupy a unique position in Society.  King’s Consort, First Courtesan in Europe, Queen of the Whores—all names I have answered to in my lifetime.  I understand that this is the reason why many of you will read these memoirs.  Some hope to understand how a simple Baron’s daughter rose to such infamy.  Others, perhaps, seek a way to tear me down . . .
—from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright
     
     
     
     
    Flying in the face of inclination, training and years of precedence, Brynne burst into her father’s study.  Still clad in her outerwear and evening finery, she closed the door on the butler’s protests and