The Viscount's Addiction Read Online Free PDF Page B

suffocating in here.” Jessie moved to open a window. Untouched for so many years, the window would not budge.
    “No warmth. Just smoke, I’m afraid. But the fire is dying now.” He held up a bottle of port. “This will soothe your throat.”
    She took a step toward him, thinking a drink might be welcome, then stopped short. An array of intoxicating substances was arranged neatly on the table. “I’m fine,” she said with a frown.

    His gaze followed hers. “Perhaps you’d like to try something different.” He picked up a clay pipe then smiled wickedly. “From that prim scowl, I’m assuming not.” He set the pipe back down. “I’m not that inclined to share, anyhow.”
    Against her better sense she felt the need to confront him. “Surely, it is not becoming for a viscount to indulge in such a base habit.”
    He dropped back onto the dusty settee. “Hush. A hallucination should not nag. It ruins the effect.”
    “Now that you are home, won’t you consider giving it up?”
    He laughed. “Splendid idea. I’ll start tomorrow.” He reached for the pipe and started packing it with a mixture of tobacco and a blackish substance which Jessie assumed was opium.
    “’Tis none of my concern. Don’t let me stop you, continue to wallow in your decadence.” In truth, she had the urge to sweep all his substances into the hearth.
    “Why don’t you go scold your husband? He has wicked habits of his own. Although considering how sinfully arousing his wife is—” his heated gaze made her feel naked, “—pleasuring her should be more than enough vice. And yet Lewis seems too stupid to partake.”
    “We haven’t seen you in two days. I’m surprised you managed to shake off your stupor long enough to know who slept where.”
    He tapped the pipe on the table to pack down the contents. “In my defense, it was only a semi-stupor—” and he actually had the audacity to grin, “—and it is amazing what you can and can’t hear in a deathly quiet house. I certainly wouldn’t kick you out of my bed for a few indiscretions.”
    Blast Henry and his ravings. Now Lord Blackwood assumed she was wed to Lewis and that she was an adulterer. Jessie didn’t know which of those assumptions she found more distasteful. “What a free-thinking man you are,” she congratulated him. “I wonder if you would truly be so liberal with your own wife.”
    “Never given it much thought.” He used his tinderbox to light his pipe. He took a long draw then paused before exhaling. The foreign scent mingled unpleasantly with the musty smell of the room.
    “Perhaps you ought,” she said.
    Inhaling seemed to take effect faster than drinking. He was already resting his head back against the settee. She waited until he took one more puff before springing the news

    on him. Surely he wouldn’t have the energy to throttle her, and she could easily outrun him, if need be. “I’m not Lewis’s wife. I’m yours.”
    A deep lazy laugh rumbled from his throat. “First I’m seeing things and now I’m hearing things. I could’ve sworn you said you were my wife.”
    Surely this man would have them all arrested for fraud, but it had to be said. “I’m afraid I am all too real and we are legally wed.”
    He lifted his head slowly from the settee backrest. His expression sobered for a moment. “How’s that?”
    Her gaze flitted to the door and she gauged the distance. She wouldn’t be caught in this sordid tangle if it hadn’t been for her stepfather. Henry had been persistent, pleading with her on behalf of his nephew. Lord Blackwood was desperate for the union. Lord Blackwood feared that his estate would fall into the hands of unscrupulous relations, he’d said. But she had been persistent as well, refusing to tie herself to a murderer. Her defiance was soon met with brutality, and with a heavy heart she’d finally submitted. That was when she realized there couldn’t be more unscrupulous relations than Henry and Lewis.
    “We were