A Gentleman Never Tells by Juliana Gray Read Free Book Online

an Italian stable?
    Surely not.
    A slight quiver moved across Roland’s chest. He whispered in her ear: “Lady Morley, by God.”
    Don’t laugh, Roland
, she thought.
For God’s sake, don’t laugh.
She fought the desire herself: amusement and relief and horror, all muddled together. What if she and Roland were found, clenched together in the darkness, in what could only be a lover’s embrace?
    They were exchanging words, Alexandra and her male visitor. Who was it? Wallingford, probably. Hadn’t there been something between the two of them, long ago? Lilibet opened her eyes at last, trying to peer past Roland into the darkness, but his chest and shoulder engulfed her, and the only light came from a pair of dark lanterns hooked near the doorway.
    Another quiver shook Roland’s chest, stronger this time. He must have known who the other man was.
    The voices continued, soft and intimate. Good God, they weren’t going to . . . they weren’t meeting here to do
that
!
Not Alexandra, not with Wallingford.
    Were they?
    Lilibet rolled her forehead into Roland’s shoulder. No. Anything but that. She could not stand here in the arms of Lord Roland Penhallow, of all the men in the world, and listen to her cousin engage in carnal union with the Duke of Wallingford.
    Please, Lord.
Please
.
    She listened with horrified fascination as the voices rose and fell, always too quiet to discern, the round English tones floating across the cold air, an occasional word breaking through the murmur:
ravish
and
stepladder
and
devil
.
    Damn the both of them.
    Lilibet never swore aloud, of course, but in her thoughts she profaned as frequently as the captain of a China clipper, though she supposed not with as much potency and variety. Hers had been a sheltered life, after all.
    The voices dropped to whispers. Bloody hell.
    And then, without warning, the words stopped altogether.
    She held her breath, waiting to hear the rustle of clothing, the telltale groans and sighs and gasps. The sound of flesh against flesh, of bodies thumping on the ground or—she shuddered—against the same wall that supported her now.
    But all she heard were footsteps. Footsteps, treading back down the length of the stables, disappearing out into the night.

FOUR
    L ilibet sagged into Roland’s shoulder, shaking with laughter at last. His arms closed around her, held her upright as he laughed, too, in great suppressed jolts of his body. “Good God,” he whispered, “I thought we were finished. Done for.”
    “I was afraid they would start to . . . oh Lord!” Tears formed at the corners of her eyes; she struggled to raise her hand between their bodies to brush the wetness away.
    “Start to what?”
    She blurted the words without thought. “That they were lovers!”
    He chuckled. “No, no. Not that. I was only afraid I’d lose control entirely and give us away.”
    “Oh Lord.” She covered her face with her hands. “They’d have thought
we
were . . .”
    “When of course we were only . . .”
    The air turned to crystal between them. Roland’s hands dropped away; he took a short step backward. The separation, the loss of him, was like her heart hollowing out from her body.
    “We were only . . .” she repeated softly.
    “. . . saying good-bye,” he said. Without the lantern’s glow, his voice came out of the void, unmoored from his beautiful face.
    She didn’t need to see his face. She knew exactly how it looked: how his hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, how his golden brown hair curled on his forehead. How his strong jaw met his sturdy neck, how his full lips parted just before he spoke.
    How would those lips feel upon hers?
    She’d never known. Their years-ago courtship had been long on elegant words and clandestine glances, and short on physical expression. Proper English ladies, dutiful daughters of proper English ladies, did not accept kisses before engagement rings.
    But she’d imagined his kisses, more than