A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal by Meredith Duran Read Free Book Online Page A

strengthened. She would give herself to him. Let this long, strong body do what it liked with hers.
    Lay the terms
, a cold voice instructed.
    She broke free, not to fight, but to say, breathlessly, “If I do it with you, you promise you’ll let me go.”
    His mouth had found her ear, but at these words, he stilled. She had the curious impression that she’d startled him somehow.
    He pulled away. The moonlight reflected in his gray-green eyes. Thick, dark lashes framed those eyes, which studied her so narrowly that her intuition strengthened: yes, she’d surprised him. And he didn’t like it. He started to frown.
    “Alas,” he said. “We’ve had a misunderstanding. I want a different arrangement entirely.”
    Nell woke up the next morning spitting mad. She was mad at the fact that the door was still locked. That nobody came when she pounded on it. That she hadn’t just shot the man straight off last night. She was done with being bullied like a dog. He seemed a right arrogant bastard and was a pervert by his own action and admission; she could have done the world a favor by ending him.
    She was mad, most of all, at the way she’d slept. One might expect after being mauled by a blackguard to toss and turn a bit. But the bed was like a dream, a soft, fluffy, sinner’s paradise, its pillows stuffed with feathers, the mattress so quiet that even bouncing on it couldn’t draw out a creak. She’d slept like a baby—or, worse yet, like a woman without a brain in her head. The
stupidity
of it sent cold waves of horror through her. The lock was on the outside of the door! As she’d slept, St. Maur could have come in and done anything!
    Now she paced the perimeter of the bedroom, her temper growing worse with each pass. Not ten minutes away, people were suffering, starving—good people, girls who worked from sunup to sundown, babies who’d not asked to be born. But here there were houses full of
stuff
, fancy sheets woven with silk floss as soft as a baby’s bum; fancy washstands carved of dark wood that glowed like cherries where the light hit it; curtains the shade of the summer sky, heavy and glossy and smooth to the touch. The velvet-flocked wallpaper was so soft beneath her fingertips that had her eyes been closed, she might have thought she was brushing the belly of a rabbit.
    And the stool in the corner! One wouldn’t imagine you’d get too fancy with such a piece, but this stool was covered with embroidery so fine that her knuckles ached just looking at the stitches. Unbelievable. The rich even spoiled their arses!
    Given a knife, Nell would have cut out that embroidery—some goofy-looking, underfed girl with a unicorn lying next to her, his head in her lap—and sold it for five quid, easy.
    But she no longer had a knife. Last night, a couple of thuggish footmen had held her by the arms while apug-nosed, sour-faced maid had searched her up and down, going straight for the blade Nell kept in her boot.
    Why St. Maur was keeping her instead of handing her over to the police was a question Nell didn’t want to entertain. There were a lot of things she didn’t think about as she paced—like, so what if he knew her name? Folks in Bethnal Green didn’t talk to strangers; he’d be hard-pressed to track her down once she escaped. No, she had better things to think about—like what she would manage to steal. A good deal, she hoped. She deserved it for sparing Mr. bloody St. Maur his wretched, dog-eaten life.
    She started with the book on the table by the bed. Gilt-edged pages and a cover of patterned red leather. She’d read a good many books in her life, but this was the handsomest she’d ever seen. The story inside looked ripping, too—some yarn about a magical, cursed stone. Mum would have loved it—as long as she wasn’t in one of her moods where only the Bible would serve.
    The thought brought a lump into Nell’s throat. She swallowed it down as she traced the grooved design on the cover. She’d