Wicked Wager Read Online Free PDF

than ten steps into the darkness in the opposite direction. It would be dangerous to choose this direction, but it’s the one I strongly favour.’
    For a moment common sense swept aside her rash daring, for what possible reason could he have for leading her to a secluded part of the gardens than to take liberties that, if discovered, could ruin her?
    She was not such a fool.
    But oh, she was tempted.
    Unable to make a clear decision, she wavered. ‘Why are you always at my shoulder, sir? I could almost imagine you are following me.’
    â€˜And why should that come as a surprise to the most beautiful woman in the gardens tonight? I thought it when you turned and gazed at me at the opera on Thursday. When you’d gone I believed I must have imagined such luminescence. Now my eyes assure me I did not.’
    â€˜A very pretty speech, sir. Do you use it on all the ladies?’
    â€˜Only those whose acquaintance I wish to further. You are not … attached to that gentleman with whom I saw you earlier? I might think your beauty unrivalled but I am not a libertine. I would wish to know if you are free to bestow your attentions upon me.’
    She hesitated for the merest second before replying quickly, ‘Raphael is my cousin. He often accompanies me to such places.’ She tilted her head to smile at him. Artless and encouraging, and Peregrine felt a curious surge of excitement, but disappointment too. For she had lied to him. By omission, at any rate.
    Drawing her, unresisting, a short distance away into the darkness, he murmured, ‘Then if you are so bold as to court the attentions of a dangerous stranger, I would be so bold as to ask for a kiss.’ Her transparent, clearly unfeigned shock heightened his desire. So she was not in the habit of making conquests, as Xenia suggested her dealings with Harry Carstairs implied.
    Her eyelids fluttered closed as she ran the tip of her tongue across her top lip. Experimenting? Priming it? He gave her barely a chance to do either before he swooped to seize the moment, nestling her against his chest while he gently traced the line of her beautiful mouth with his thumb.
    Her body tensed before she melted in his embrace, responding with fleeting but impassioned ardour when her mouth fused with his, sealing his desire with a kiss of such incendiary passion he could almost believe it sufficient to incinerate them both.
    Brief as it was passionate, for suddenly she was pushing him away, spinning on her heel to gain distance, her shocked face illuminated by the lantern hanging from the branches of a nearby tree.
    â€˜I don’t know what came over me. It defies rational explanation.’ She put her fingers to her lips, as if she could not believe what they’d been subjected to. ‘Please excuse my reckless behaviour.’
    â€˜I would prefer to encourage it.’
    She opened her mouth to say more, then added simply, ‘Goodnight, sir.’
    When Peregrine blinked again she was gone and he was left standing alone beneath the spreading branches of a plane tree, his brief elation swept away by disappointment and another feeling that he was not prepared to identify. One he’d felt when his older and favourite cousin no longer had any wish to deal with him. But surely devastation was too strong a word for what was a calculated conquest that took no account of the heart?
    ***
    Celeste crested the hill to find herself almost upon Raphael and his cohorts. He was laughing, in fine humour, and so fortunately responded to her slight disorder with careless concern.
    â€˜Communing with the Vauxhall ghost, my dear? Here, a glass of champagne will have you up to the mark. My friend Sir Samuel has just been telling me the latest on-dit . Apparently Lord Peregrine’s sister is about to take Holy Orders after she was, to all intents and purposes, jilted at the altar.’ Raphael clapped Sir Samuel on the back in a gesture of uncharacteristic