A Most Unladylike Adventure by Elizabeth Beacon Read Free Book Online Page B

the face of so many failures, he hauled himself out of bed and gave vent to a heartfelt groan as his own heartbeat pounded fists of pain into his suffering brain at the sudden movement. Reaching blindly for the water jug, he gulped a lukewarmdraught directly from it and groaned as he waited for the thundering in his ears to abate and the pain in his temples to dull to a bearable throb, then splashed water on to his face to try to relieve the ache behind his eyes.
    ‘Damned petticoat-led idiot,’ he castigated himself as he glared at his bleary-eyed reflection in the fine mirror his friend had furnished this guest bedchamber with, as he dried his face on the fine towel provided for more appreciative visitors than he was proving to be. ‘And just what would you think of me if you could see me right now, my friend?’ he speculated as he contemplated Kit Stone’s outspoken disgust at the spectre he’d made of himself.
    And that was before Kit could even begin on the subject of kept women and which of them was keeping her. Hugh shook his head, despite the fierce clash of pain it cause, frowned fiercely at his reflection, then realised he didn’t even want to meet his own eyes in the mirror any more, let alone imagine holding his friend’s dark and yet somehow steely gaze when he finally came home and took back his empire and his woman from such faulty hands as Hugh Darke’s had proved to be.
    ‘Abel Coste! Where the devil are you?’ hewent to the door and bellowed, in the hope his drinking companion of last night was in a better state of preservation than he was himself this morning, which would hardly be difficult, given that he felt as if he’d been trampled half to death by a herd of wild horses.
    ‘Whatever is it?’ his unwelcome visitor demanded impatiently from below.
    ‘I want Coste,’ he snapped back.
    ‘Well, you can’t have him, he’s busy.’
    ‘Since you certainly don’t need a shave, I can’t imagine how,’ he mumbled disagreeably, but she obviously possessed hearing a cat would have been proud of.
    ‘And if you were planning to let him shave you, then you must be even more addled than I thought, considering the sorry state he’s in this morning,’ she told him, as if she was some sort of stern maiden aunt rather than a brazen hussy.
    She was still looking like a barbarian princess in her ill-fitting breeches and that ridiculous black shirt, her silken mass of dark chestnut hair falling down her back like a promise of all kinds of sensual delights. He knew she was no better than she should be, yet she made him ache to feel the luxurious wonder of her against his naked skin while heplayed idly with that wanton hair as they lay, momentarily sated, in each other’s arms. The last thing he needed was this burning desire to make her scream with desire and passion such as she’d never known before, and now he came to think about it, a mild shout of satisfaction might well blast the top of his head off and do permanent damage to his feeble brain just now.
    Damnation take it, he shouldn’t even think of her
in extremis
like that. Not only was he in no state to pleasure even the most undemanding of houris, but he was also an ungrateful bastard who suddenly really wanted to at least try to drive her wild with mutual lust and see if such exquisite gratification could cure his hangover.
    How could he even think of turning on the man who’d rescued him when everyone else had left him to rot in the gutter by trying to steal his woman? He’d better convince his baser self he didn’t want the confounded woman as a matter of urgency, then at least he’d be ready to conduct Kit’s business for the day instead of standing here fantasising about seducing his mistress.
    ‘I wasn’t planning on letting Abel or anyone else near my throat with a razor,’ he drawledin a deliberate echo of the insufferably cocky aristocrat he’d once been, ‘but to shave myself properly I need hot water and Coste is much