Beauty and the Duke by Melody Thomas Read Free Book Online

his wife.
    “Why not go to your constable?” Christine asked.
    “Because there is something on my land responsible for killing people. A cave, a hole, a crevice. Hell, some people think it is a monster, a ghost, or the Sedgwick curse. I need someone who knows how to follow the right clues and resolve this question. By the dimension of the tooth you are holding, something else large is buried up there.”
    “May I keep these for a few days? I would like to study this find.”
    His first instinct was to tell her no for she had already given him what he had come here for.
    With the recent bones found on his property, Erik needed someone who could give him answers. But her request demanded that he answer to himself his real motives for being here, which had only partially to do with fossils and his need to absolve himself of a crime he did not commit. It had not been an accident that he had contacted Darlington after Charles Sommers passed away.
    Erik picked up his hat and riding quirt from the chair and walked to the desk. He settled the hat on his head, then reached across the desk for the pen and dipped the nib in ink to scratch out his address in Mayfair. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of her skirt. In the dull light, he’d thought it a drab gray, but it was blue with little white flowers falling like random snowflakes. She was wearing a petticoat, one at most, for her skirt merely covered her hips and did not hide her shape. Following the path of this thought, he raised his gaze to find her looking at him with equal intensity.The air seemed to warm around him, and over the smell of old books and dust that filled the room, something more enticing than a hothouse herbal garden touched his senses.
    Forcing himself to concentrate, he scribbled on the piece of paper where he could be reached this next week. “I will be in meetings over the next four days,” he said, writing furiously, “after that, I cannot tell you for sure where I will be. If you need to make an appointment, it might be best to go through my man of affairs.” He held out the slip of paper and waited for her to take it.
    There was a sudden heavy silence. She slid it from his fingers. “Your social appointment calendar must be brimming over.”
    His lips curled into a self-deprecating smile that briefly touched his eyes. “Are you asking in a polite, unobtrusive way if I have come to London to secure myself another bride, among my other business of meeting with financiers, solicitors, and visiting you?”
    She flushed, and he could see that was exactly what she was asking.
    “Why?” He grinned. “Are you interested?”
    “I most certainly am not.”
    Her reaction might have amused him had he suddenly not found himself insulted by the swiftness of her answer. But something told him Christine had not survived the last decade living in a man’s world because her innards were made of fluff. She had learned long ago that there was no room in her world for frailty.
    “What happened to you, Christine? You used to laugh and enjoy life. Where is your sense of humor?”
    “Why are you here, Erik? Not in London. But why are you here at Sommershorn when you have the entire museum staff at your disposal?”
    He set down the pen on the desk. “Besides the factthat I need this find to remain secret, I came to hire the most qualified expert in the field to identify and trace the source of those bones. The work will be hard and arduous, as the crags around my home are not inviting of a Sunday picnic. Six months ago, I had written to your father about the possibility of his coming to Scotland. At the time, I did not know he was ill. He recommended Darlington.”
    The smooth line of her jaw went rigid as an ax. “As you already know, Mr. Darlington has been contracted by the museum for a dig in Perth.”
    Erik smiled, though no one of intelligence would construe the action as friendly. “I’m rich, Miss Sommers. I can offer him a hundred times