Three Schemes and a Scandal Read Online Free PDF

ticking, time was running out and she was facing exile!
    “Oh damn,” James swore. In his haste to return to the ground, James’s breeches caught on a nail jutting from a crate. The couple fell silent at the sound of ripping fabric.
    Two pairs of blue eyes nervously looked down to the gentleman’s lower half, which was indelicately exposed thanks to a tear along the breeches, exposing his unmentionables.
    “Your jacket will cover it,” Charlotte said and it was mostly the truth. The tear was positioned such that, so long as he didn’t move or bend over, or if the wind didn’t blow the tails of his coat, no one would notice. “Hurry.”
    “Also …” James began in a tone a voice that was a prelude to something not good.
    “Also?” Charlotte echoed, infusing more drama than necessary into the syllables.
    “I don’t think I’ll be able to climb out the window. Can’t get high enough. But I could lift you, then you could shimmy down and go unlatch the door.”
    “In skirts?”
    “Take them off,” James said with a shrug.
    Her mouth dropped open. Even she, the ever-unflappable Charlotte Brandon, was shocked by a gentleman’s simple command to disrobe before him.
    And then to climb out a window at a garden party.
    In her underthings.
    This was a bit much, even for her, which was really saying something.
    “I beg your pardon!” she said, because it seemed the thing to say in such a situation. If her brother found out about this, she would be packed off to Scotland by midnight. Perhaps even Australia.
    “Charlotte, we are a facing a lifetime of —”
    “Holy matrimony? Wedded bliss? Eternal devotion?”
    “Take your damned dress off,” he growled, eyes flashing.
    “Bloody hell,” she swore.
    “Language, young lady,” he reprimanded.
    “Now you develop a sense of propriety,” she retorted.
    “If only you would have done so an hour ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
    “Oh!” Charlotte pressed her palms against his rather hard chest and pushed him. He stumbled back a step, because he was startled and not because of the force. His hands closed around her wrists and he held her. Close. Then, he turned her around.
    Suddenly, it became difficult to breathe, as she was held flush against him and aware that he was aroused by this. If the heat in her belly—and lower—was any indication, she was too.
    Obviously, there was a design flaw with the air supply in the folly. James ought to mention that in his speech. His speech!
    “How much time do we have?” Charlotte asked, sounding more breathless than she would have liked.
    “I’m not really watching the clock right now, Charlotte,” James said. His voice was strangely husky and it did things to her. Made her feel things.
    And then he began to unbutton her dress. He worked quickly, and the speed, ease and determination with which he divested her of her gown were anything but seductive.
    Or so she told herself.
    She had felt his fingertips brush quickly and gently against her bare skin, where no man had ever touched her. She had felt the pause when he had undone all the buttons, but hadn’t moved to help her out of the gown. As if he were looking, drinking her in.
    Charlotte stepped out of her dress and looked for a place to hang it. She settled for the knob of the door. That cursed, locked door.
    “Are you ready?” James asked her. His eyes had darkened. They focused firmly on her face. And it irritated her that a rake such as he did not openly ogle her. One lascivious stare was the least he could give her.
    “Of course,” she replied, as if she stripped down to her undergarments in front of gentlemen regularly. As if this situation were not at all unusual.
    There was something familiar about it. In a way, it felt like old times.
    Just with corsets. And a man, not a boy.
    It was not like old times at all.
    Good lord, she was going daft.
    “Let’s do this,” she said firmly. It was deuced awkward but he climbed up, then she did, then he