A Well Pleasured Lady by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page A

As it was,her frigid tone and the gaze from her frosty blue eyes flayed him. “I find pleasure in no man’s arms.”
    She objected to his handling, that was clear. He didn’t care.
    Readjusting his hold to ease the pressure of her grip, he said, “Perhaps you haven’t been in the right man’s arms.”
    â€œYou misunderstand me, Lord Whitfield.” She looked pointedly at their clasped hands. “I have been in no man’s arms.”
    She had to be jesting.
    â€œAnd I intend for that situation to continue.”
    She wasn’t.
    And he believed her. Believed a Fairchild, a liar by definition, because hunger writhed in his gut every time he looked at her. He’d told her she looked like a housekeeper, and that was true.
    She wore a black dress and held herself rigidly erect with the help of an unfashionable corset. She eschewed the new, freer fashions and wore a whalebone petticoat, secure in the knowledge no man could discern her shape beneath the unbending hoops. She stuck her hair up in a bun, then used one of those netlike things to make sure her curls were sufficiently trapped, and sometimes she added a plain mobcap. No cosmetics brought color to her rounded cheeks, and no patches accented the disapproving, puckered mouth.
    It was also true that those whalebones couldn’t quite contain her generous breasts, and nothing keptthose wisps of blond confined for long. Cosmetics might have hidden the betraying ebb and flow of color in Miss Fairchild’s face, and he wondered—when he kissed her, would his lips leave a mark on her fair flesh? When he removed that dour headgear, would her hair taunt him with its ebullience? When he stripped her of that miserable corset and dress and touched her rosy parts, would she yield, become soft and generous, make him forget his enmity toward her entire intemperate clan?
    He shuddered. No. No, he could never forget. That would be the betrayal he could never live with.
    On the long trip up from his London town house, he’d made his plans. He would whip in and wheedle this Fairchild into doing his will. He hadn’t thought it would take much effort—God knew the entire family responded well to flattery. Superficial emotions were all any of them understood. When he blasted her with his charm, she would melt like all the other Fairchilds.
    Trouble was, when he was with her, he didn’t use his charm. He felt compelled to incite her instead.
    He shouldn’t, he knew. He needed her cooperation. But something about her made him want to make the caged bird sing. Perhaps it was the way she spoke: softly, as if she feared being overheard, and slowly, as if she considered each word before she allowed it egress. Perhaps it was the way she moved: gracefully, as if she feared to cause an accident, and precisely, as if each motion should be measured and weighed.
    He released her hand, then followed her as she glided down the stairs toward the carriage. She might not like it, but she was quite human, and beneath that shapeless black frock, very female.
    He thought—he hoped—she would do him proud when dressed in silks and lace and presented as his betrothed to her family. They would know he had won a prize. That mattered to him. It mattered more than it should.
    â€œWhere’s your brother?” he asked. “I thought he would be here to see you off.”
    Miss Fairchild smiled, a tight curve of the lips made up of half nerves, half defiance. “Hadden wished to speak to an old woman in the Highlands. He said she knew about the hauntings at the field of Culloden, and he’s much interested in…the war.”
    She lied. Sebastian knew it as well as he knew the scar on his hand, but how could he prove it? His gaze scoured the landscape. Wisps of snow decorated those Highland peaks, and each night he’d been here, the ground had frozen hard. The road would be easier to travel because of the frost, but he