To Seduce a Bride Read Online Free PDF

toward the Danvers Hall manor house.
    She was as captivating as her elder sisters but wholly different. Her bold dark eyes and rich, dark-chestnut hair, in addition to her coltish grace, gave Lily a vividness that made her seem vibrant and alive.
    She had marvelous eyes, Heath thought as he aimed for the rear terrace that flanked the ballroom. They were lustrous and expressive; warm and laughing one minute, indignant and defiant the next, heavy and slumberous when she was aroused.
    She had a mouth like sin, as well. And he knew she would have a luscious body beneath that properly fashionable ball gown…
    At the sudden memory of exploring her soft warm flesh with his searching fingertips, Heath felt a fresh rush of desire.
    â€œBlast it, man,” he swore at himself as he mounted the terrace steps. “You’d best bridle your lust before you do something even more inappropriate with her.”
    He sure as the devil couldn’t deny wanting Lily, though.
    Yet admittedly, one of her prime attractions was her laughter. He’d first heard it this morning while waiting at the church with Marcus and Drew for the wedding party to arrive.
    When she drove up in the open barouche with her sisters, her laughter had been warm and tender. Later, at the wedding breakfast, it was lilting and musical during her animated conversation with her friends, Fanny Irwin and Miss Tess Blanchard. And then a short while ago, husky and delighted when she was talking to the kittens.
    Laughter was important to him. It had been a big part of his childhood—an essential part, the best part—before his mother died when he was ten. His friends, Marcus and Drew, had supplied the laughter since then, all during his boyhood when they’d attended Eton and then Oxford together, and for the past decade as adults. But now that Marcus had taken a wife, that would change to a significant extent—
    Cutting off that dark thought, Heath returned to ruminating about Lily Loring as he crossed the terrace. It was only natural that he enjoyed her laughter. But he also liked her forthrightness.
    In his experience such honesty was unusual when dealing with females of any stamp. After all the mincing and coy flirtations he’d been subjected to from grasping debutantes over the years, her frankness was profoundly refreshing.
    Lily’s resistance to him, however, was wholly unexpected. He was not at all accustomed to female indifference. Bold seductions and relentless pursuit were the usual mode. As one of London’s most eligible aristocrats, Heath had been the target of countless scheming husband-hunters for well over a decade.
    Surprisingly, his disinterest in marriage hadn’t stopped women from falling in love with him. Instead, they flocked to him, in large part because he knew how to satisfy their desires….
    Of necessity Heath’s musings were brought to a halt when he entered the ballroom through one of the rear French doors, the same one he’d exited a half hour before. Almost at once a feminine voice called his name.
    To his surprise, he saw Fanny Irwin approaching, as if she had been waiting for his reappearance.
    Her expression did not look happy. “My Lord Claybourne,” Fanny said in a low voice that held a note of urgency. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a moment of your time?”
    â€œOf course, Miss Irwin—” he started to say when she cut him off.
    â€œIn
private,
my lord, if you don’t mind.”
    Although puzzled by her request, Heath had no objection to following her behind a bank of potted palms. He knew from Marcus that Fanny had been the Loring sisters’ close neighbor and dearest friend in Hampshire during their childhood. He also knew that she was once a respectable young lady who had left home at sixteen to become one of London’s most renowned courtesans. Her success now even rivaled the most fashionable Cyprian of them all, Harriet Wilson.