A Man Above Reproach by Evelyn Pryce Read Free Book Online Page A

blasted beautiful eyes. She thought it might be sympathy, which repulsed her.
    “I am sorry if you find me crass, but I do not have the leisure time as afforded Your Grace. Or any man.” She shuffled through the sheet music in front of her, searching for the intro measures, and found that her eyes were watering. Embarrassed, surely. Burned. The libretto was a convenient excuse to turn her face. “I do not want your censure or your pity.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “Shhh,” she cooed, in a tone she usually reserved to pacify drunkards. “The ladies are waiting for me to play the introduction.”
    Josephine began the overture and Elias flagged down Digby, to order drinks for the both of them. He made no attempt to move from the bench, but he did lean back a bit to accommodate her playing. She shifted, adjusted her posture, tried to focus. It was dastardly hard to do, knowing that he could see the composition, and in the absolute holiness of his arrogance he would not hesitate to correct a mistake. He was watching her, from what she could make out in her peripheral vision, but she could not see his exact expression. Foul man, who should be home with his wife, instead here he was, making her life ever more difficult. This was the exact reason she railed against the nobility in her book. The men had nothing to do but indulge their basest desires, whether or not they ruined lives in the process.
    He flipped the page for her as she reached the end of the intro.
    “Can you play and talk at the same time?” he asked, too near her ear.
    “In general,” she said, staring straight forward at the bars and notes, not daring to turn. “But this arrangement is a bit new to me, so I need to concentrate.” She obeyed the long rest at the end of the measure, hearing the girls shuffle behind the curtain. Josephine knew to wait until they calmed down to play the opening song. The duke stood up, apparently deciding to honor her request for attentiveness.
    “Apologize for cutting me,” he murmured, bending so that only she could hear his words in the silent anticipation of the room waitingfor dancing girls. Or was it silent because everyone was staring at them? She played an innocuous line to try to cover and distract, but Elias’s lips were still next to her ear. “Apologize, and see me after the show. Alone.”
    “No,” she said through set teeth.
    To her absolute horror, he placed a hand on her chin and turned her face to him. With her sitting and being forced to look up, he seemed impossibly tall and breathtakingly handsome.
    “You will,” he all but whispered. “Won’t you?”
    “Go. Away. Now.”
    His face broke into a smile, a genuine one.
    “Are you implying that if I go away
now
, you will see me
later
?”
    The man was not going to back down. She would have to lie to him and find a way to escape after the show.
    “Fine, Lennox. Fine. Go!”
    Mother Superior was waving from behind the makeshift stage. Josephine had to start. Everyone in the place was gaping at them. They had become the preshow.
    “Go!” She hissed once more.
    She could have sworn he was chuckling when he walked away.

    “Are you mad?” Nicholas demanded when Elias returned to the table in front. There was a stifled laugh within the question.
    “Quite,” Elias said. He felt light-headed and exhilarated. For a man who lived by rules that were set down ages before he had any say about the matter, and lived them to the letter, to fence with this woman was novel and invigorating. He was not doing it for anyone but himself, a feeling that he had not experienced since being snatched from Oxford three years before. If there was talk, he would have to worry about itlater. He wanted the brief moment of happiness that he felt when he saw the spark in her eyes.
    She did not hate him. She just wanted to.
    “Lennox, you rakehell. You practically kissed her in front of everyone.”
    “An exaggeration.”
    Nicholas sighed with happiness. “It does my