The Marrying Season Read Online Free PDF

find Gabriel and Alec, as well.”
    “No doubt. They are never far from their wives. Oh, Myles, you must not tempt me.”
    “Mustn’t I?” His golden-brown eyes lit up, and Genevieve felt an odd quiver. The music came to a halt, but Myles retained possession of her hand. “Come, leave with me.”
    Genevieve nodded, giving a guilty little giggle, and Myles whisked her out of the room.

Three
    M yles led Genevieve down the hall and up the back staircase, both of them laughing like naughty children escaping the schoolroom.
    “How do you know where to go?” Genevieve asked, a little breathless from the climb up two flights of stairs.
    “You forget—I have known Gabe since we were lads. We usually gathered here or at my house.”
    “Yes, I remember,” Genevieve replied a little wistfully. “Alec was always running off to join you. I was quite envious.”
    “Were you?” He glanced at her, surprised.
    “Of course! You were having fun, no doubt engaging in all sorts of forbidden things, and I was stuck with my governess and my grandmother, keeping my back straight and learning how to walk appropriately.”
    “If only I had known that you were interested in forbidden things.” His voice held an odd, husky quality, and Genevieve glanced at him sharply. His mouth was curved up in a slow, sensuous way he had never smiled at her before, and for an instant, heat flashed in his eyes. Then he dropped her hand and opened the door for her.
    Maddeningly, Genevieve felt a blush forming on her cheeks, and she ducked her head to hide it from him as she slipped through the doorway. She stopped, Myles right behind her, as they took in the sight before them.
    They were in the nursery wing of the town house, where the corridor was narrower and the ceiling lower. At the opposite end of the hall were Thea and Damaris. Next to his wife, Alec lounged against the wall, his pale blond hair almost brushing the low ceiling, his face relaxed and mellow. All three of them were laughing as they watched the fourth member of their group, Gabriel, Lord Morecombe, romping on the floor with a shrieking, giggling blond-haired tot.
    Genevieve glanced at Myles, her eyes brimming with laughter, and they kept their silence, gazing at the handsome aristocrat, coat off and dark curls mussed, on all fours acting as “horsey” for the merry boy on his back.
    After a moment, Myles murmured, “Damaris is in the family way, isn’t she?”
    “What?” Genevieve turned to him, startled. Damaris was not even showing yet, and she herself had had no idea until Damaris had divulged the happy news to her the day before. “How did you know?”
    He shook his head. “You forget, I have five sisters—and innumerable nieces and nephews. She simply looks . . . the way they looked.”
    “Well, it’s scarcely something you should be talking about!” Genevieve told him sharply, not sure whether she was more shocked that he had brought up such an indelicatesubject or that he had so easily been able to see what she had not. “ ’Tis most inappropriate.”
    “You cannot think I would broadcast their secrets,” he protested. “You are Alec’s sister.”
    “I didn’t mean you would gossip. But a gentleman shouldn’t know such things.”
    Myles’s eyebrows soared upward. “My dear girl, I am not blind nor, I hope, dull witted. After all the times that Amelia and Daphne and Meg—”
    “Yes, yes, I know,” Genevieve cut into his speech hastily. “You have a veritable flock of sisters. But you could at least pretend not to know such things about women.”
    “I hope you realize how absurd you sound.”
    “Oh, hush.” Genevieve scowled at him.
    Their argument had attracted the attention of the two couples at the opposite end of the hall, and they greeted them happily. “Genevieve! Myles!”
    “Come join us.”
    “Yes, do.” Gabriel reached back and scooped the child off his back, rising lithely to his feet. The blond boy let out a cry of protest before