When His Kiss Is Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page A

ball.
    That thought caused a flutter of a different kind in her stomach as well.
    She was fraught with worry over the coming Season. Having to please her aunt Cecilia and uncle Randall. Socializing with people she had nothing in common with. Needing to find a husband.
    And marriage itself troubled her. Many nights she lay awake wondering if she would be able to find a husband who would condone her working in the bookshop. Most men outright frowned upon the idea of a woman managing a store, and some even found it mildly amusing, but all of them disapproved and automatically assumed she would refrain from working in the shop once she became a wife. But Colette had no intentions of quitting, of ever giving up something that she loved in order to please a man. She loved the bookshop too much.
    And she knew she could make Hamilton’s more successful than her father ever would have dreamed. Yet she knew her family was depending on her to support them.
    If only she had more time.

Chapter Three
     

Well, Look Who It Is
     
    Lucien Sinclair, the Earl of Waverly, entered the Hayvenhursts’ massive townhouse with a heavy heart and a forced smile on his face.
    Usually he enjoyed the London Season. Nights spent socializing with his good friends, playing cards, going to the theater, attending parties and balls, and critiquing the latest crop of debutantes had always put him in jovial spirits. The start of a Season was exciting and he had always looked forward to it before. But this year would be different. This Season meant business. His father was ill and dying, and the inevitable could be delayed no longer.
    As much as he hated the thought of it, he had to find a wife.
    He had put it off for too long as it was. Not that he hadn’t tried over the years to find a suitable bride. Well, perhaps that thought was not quite true, he admitted to himself. In all honesty, since his disastrous relationship with Virginia Warren, he had been avoiding the thought of marriage altogether. And for good reason.
    “Lord Waverly!” Countess Hayvenhurst welcomed him with a glorious smile, her long, white-gloved arms outstretched in his direction. “We haven’t see you in ages! I’m thrilled you could come to our little party.”
    “Our little party” consisted of over five hundred guests, an army of liveried servants, a dining room filled to bursting with rich foods and drinks of every type imaginable, two orchestras, and enough flowers to fill a cemetery for a few years.
    Lucien smiled at her warmly. “I’m happy to be able to attend, Lady Hayvenhurst. It seems you have outdone yourself yet again.”
    “Oh it’s nothing.” She dismissed his compliments with an airy wave of her hand. “I simply adore parties. Now you must tell me, how is your father getting along?”
    “He is much improved,” Lucien lied, not wishing to divulge the grim details of his father’s illness to his hostess. After years of his family being the favorite topic of gossips, he was reticent to share private information with anyone.
    “I am so relieved to hear it,” she said. Lady Hayvenhurst, a matron with four grown children, had to be over fifty but still maintained a svelte figure with a considerable bosom, which she showed off to great advantage. Her laughing eyes and genuinely kind nature had won Lucien over years ago. “You must give him my very warmest regards.”
    “I will be sure to, Lady Hayvenhurst.”
    “There are some pretty new faces here this evening, Lord Waverly. Please try not to break all of their hearts in one fell swoop,” she admonished him with a merry wink.
    “I’ll do my best.” As the heir to a marquis, Lucien knew he was considered to be “a catch” by most of society, but so far he had successfully eluded capture.
    “It’s about time you found yourself a lovely wife,” she said with a knowing grin. “You’re too handsome to stay a bachelor. I think I may know just the perfect young lady for you. Would you like me to