Badcock by Debra Glass Read Free Book Online Page B

thought about her plight. Her father was right. Ralph might still proceed with the wedding if word didn’t get out that she’d been had—especially in the wake of his own cowardly behavior. But Sophia wondered if he would use it as an excuse to break their engagement. He’d never seemed all that attached to her and it wasn’t as if her title was higher than his. Her dowry, on the other hand…
    Would he give up the lands that came with marrying her to save his reputation?
    Sophia wished he would. If the dowry were bestowed on her, she could live out her life as a spinster.
    She might as well, she thought. Because she would forever compare any other man to Bad Jack. She sighed and in spite of her circumstances, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The only problem with that was that there was no comparison to Bad Jack.
    * * * * *
    “A letter for you, Lady Elinor .”
    Elinor looked up from petting her pug as the butler offered her a letter on a silver salver. Noting the sickeningly familiar wax sealing stamp, she inhaled and took the envelope. “Thank you, Porter.”
    He nodded and disappeared.
    Elinor shooed the pug off her lap and thumbed open the seal. Her hands trembled as she withdrew the letter. Her pulse raced. She recognized the handwriting immediately. It was from Jack Badcock.
    The bastard.
     
    My darling,
    I cannot wait to see you once more. These past two days keep playing and repeating in my thoughts. I must confess, I first thought this to be a simple tryst. But now I know what happened between us bespeaks so much more. I am on tenterhooks until I can hold you in my arms again.
    Yours,
    Bad Jack
     
    Elinor read and reread the letter. Raging heat rose up her spine and flamed in her face. She leapt to her feet and began to pace. “The hateful bastard! Oh, the nerve of that wretch!” She wadded the letter and started to throw it.
    Her thoughts jumbled in her head. She wanted to have her horse saddled so she could ride straight to Amberley and flay him with her riding crop. She wanted to hire a thug to pummel him to death while she watched every bone-crushing blow.
    Her heart felt as if it would drum its way out of her chest. The scapegrace had found some inexperienced virgin a better lover than she, Elinor ? Impossible! And oh, had he done all the things to his little ingénue that Elinor had wanted him to do to her? She squeezed her eyes shut trying to drive out the images of Jack Badcock cooing words of seduction to someone besides her.
    She’d write him back. That was it! Elinor dashed to her secretary and yanked open the drawer. She’d tell that miscreant just what she thought of him. And she’d let him know what a stupid fool he was.
    She snorted indelicately. Yes, she’d tell him that he’d bedded the wrong woman and was too big a dolt to know it.
    She pulled a sheaf of foolscap out of the drawer and dipped her pen in a vial of ink as she sat.
     
    My dear Bad Jack,
     
    Her hand quaked violently as she tried to write. Her breaths came in short, shallow bursts and then all at once, Elinor thought better of writing a rash letter. If he didn’t know that he’d taken the wrong woman, then she could devise a plan so diabolical that both the lovers would be ruined in society.
    Elinor smiled and put her pen back to the paper. This time, she wrote in a calm, florid script.

Chapter Four
     
    No one relaxed until Sophia got her monthly menses three weeks later. The situation with Ralph had been equally as tense.
    While Sophia had not been allowed to leave her room, she’d peered out the window to see her father’s lawyer coming and going daily. Sometimes twice in one day. She knew full well that the lawyer’s visits concerned her marriage contract with Ralph.
    Still no one had told her anything.
    Bored to distraction, she had memorized every delicate curlicue in the pattern of her gold and blue wallpaper, every indention in the gleaming crown molding, the dark shadows on the ceiling where