Beyond A Wicked Kiss by Jo Goodman Read Free Book Online Page B

his age. The duke had been tall and broad of shoulder. He had carried himself with a certain correctness of posture, as if he were always aware of his consequence and would have it that others were aware of it also. His countenance was severe but not unhandsome. He had aged well, the lines creasing his face at the eyes and mouth only adding to the definition of his character.
    West had taken great pains to see as little of his father as was possible. That had been the duke's wish as well. Neither of them had been unhappy with the arrangement, and no attempt had ever been made to alter it. Still, his father had loomed rather larger than life. It was not possible to be unaware of him, given his services to the Crown. He might have been prime minister had it not been for Liverpool's deft handling of the opposition during the war with Napoleon. The defeat in the parliament had rankled him, West knew, and he imagined his father had been plotting a new stratagem when the cancer struck and made this final ascent to power impossible. England mourned. West did not.
    He sat down in the comfortably worn wing chair situated not far from where Miss Ashby still stood. It was a restful place, this chair, or at least he had always found it so. He caught one leg of a three-legged stool and nudged it closer so he might place his heels upon it. Easing back into the chair, he cocked one eyebrow at his guest and bid her sit.
    "I shall stand, if you do not mind," she said, looking around at row after row of books that lined the room.
    "I do mind. I want to sit, and it is poor manners for me to be seated in the presence of a lady."
    "My gown is still damp. I will ruin—"
    "Sit."
    She dropped to the upholstered bench on the edge of the Aubusson rug. The blood-red damask covering contrasted sharply with her black gown. She steadied the snifter in her lap with her fingers laced around the stem. Her back remained ramrod-straight as she waited him out.
    Her eyes were blue-gray, he saw at last, and there was nothing youthful about them. She might appear to be six-and-ten in every other way, but not in her eyes. They were far older than the age she had given as her own—wise, perhaps, but also weary. The long journey to London could explain some of it, his harsh treatment of her earlier could explain still more, but neither of those things filled the whole of it. He wondered what these eyes had seen.
    "Who are you mourning?" he asked, taking in the unrelieved blackness of her attire.
    The question surprised her. How could he not know that now? "The duke, of course."
    West's slight smile was humorless. "There is no of course about it. Is he your father also? You are another of his by-blows, perhaps. Tell me, must I embrace you as my sister?"
    She spoke softly in a carefully modulated voice that was no effort for her. "You mean to be horrid, I think. I was told that you would be, and you are."
    "One endeavors not to disappoint."
    "I did not say that I was in expectation of your rudeness, merely that I'd been told of it."
    West wondered what he might make of that. He sipped from his brandy. "You had formed an opinion of me that was contrary to what you heard of my character?" he asked. "How is that possible when we can scarcely call ourselves acquainted?"
    "We have met before."
    "Now, there you are in the wrong of it. I have a happy talent for remembering faces and putting names to them. I would know if we had been introduced."
    "I did not say there were introductions. Only that we have met."
    He studied her face for a long moment. To her credit, she did not look away, but met his gaze directly. West suspected that she had kept her face averted before because she was afraid he would recognize her and have cause to send her away. Now that she had secured entry to his home, she was no longer so fearful that he would do so. He wasn't certain why she thought that was. He could put her back on the street as easily as he could have left her there.
    His mouth