A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides by Elizabeth Essex Read Free Book Online Page A

jump from dance partner to wife in once graceful leap.
    And William was not in the market for a wife. Definitely not. That was his older brother’s job, to get himself a wife, an heir, and a spare. But without active employment, Will was adrift, out of his element, restless and dissatisfied, having been turned ashore at the prime age of two and twenty, but he was determined that the little time he had allotted himself ashore would be spent as pleasantly as possible until a ship should come ready and he might be called back into service.
    Yet, with Napoleon exiled to the island of Elba, it looked to be a long, thirsty wait. And not one he wanted to pass in the company of giggling, marriage-minded chits and their managing mamas. Or his own managing mama.
    He thought of the card room, but while he was in the mood for something to pass the interminable time, his brother had thoughtfully warned him that Lord Barrington’s guests played notoriously deep, and he wasn’t about to waste his hard-earned fortune, or use up his luck on something so foolish as card games.
    So Will prowled down the dimly lit hallways looking for a more likely place to moor up. There had to be a suitably masculine room—one that contained a drinks tray—along one of these damned endless corridors. His long-legged stride took him around another corner, where the low, orange light shining from beneath a door led him to the perfect haven—a private library, its walls covered in bookshelves and its tall windows mercifully cracked open to the bracing, damp night air.
    The room looked to be a wood-paneled sanctuary—a safe, snug harbor where he could while away the evening until he was called to escort his mother and sister home. If there were a just God, the room would house a decanter of brandy.
    He shut the door behind him and made for the tray beside a couple of deep armchairs near the low-burning hearth, when a small noise—the faint clinking of glass—made him swivel toward the bookshelves.
    Well, damn his lucky eyes. It was she —the girl from the dance floor. The one who had knocked Gerry Stubbs-Haye down with a carronade of a right. Miss Antigone Preston, the girl with the name straight out of myth—literature’s first true heroine, who had to choose between dishonor and death.
    In the half dark of the firelight, she looked much less the athletic Amazon than she had standing over old Stubby’s prone form. At this distance, her chin, though tipped up defiantly, had a definite wobble.
    And, if the dark, liquid shine in her eyes was any indication, she looked near tears.
    Oh, fuck all. Will had a definite weak spot for young women in distress. Half the whores on Gibraltar knew that all they had to do to earn a coin was gift him with a tear and a tale of woe. But if there were to be tears and tales of woe, a decent drink was an absolute necessity.
    Before he could recover his gentlemanly instincts, she brightened. “Oh. It’s you.” And without another word, she turned her back and bent down to peer into a cabinet.
    Which treated Will to an absolutely spectacular view of the young woman’s backside. In the current fashion of the moment, she was clothed in a soft, high-waisted gown of some indeterminate, virginal color, which ought to have appeared demure, but which flowed over her body in a foamy, liquid wave. He tried not to stare, but her lean curves appeared very nice indeed, especially the way they seemed to dissolve into a pair of very long legs.
    This was a sight for which the land seemed admirably suited, and one which he had not had the pleasure of viewing for quite some time.
    William’s curiosity, as well as another, less cerebral part of his anatomy, was piqued.
    It took him a moment to drag his brain, and his voice, back up into his throat. “May I be of some assistance to you?” It seemed only polite to ask while he stood there perusing her lovely derrière.
    “I doubt it.” She didn’t even spare him a second glance, but