Breathless by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page B

difference in your response if I were the deformed creature you were expecting?”
    â€œI imagine I’d be compassionate, understanding. But all you’ve got is some scarring and a bad leg. Hardly the stuff of nightmares.”
    He seemed to have gotten over his initial surprise, and he simply looked at her coolly. He poured her a glass of wine, then one for himself. “So I have no call on your compassion and patience as I am?”
    â€œOf course you do, if you need it. I must say, you don’t seem to be particularly needy.”
    â€œVery astute. I have most of what I need in this life, save one thing, and I imagine it’s something you could do with, as well.” He leaned back in the chair, languid and elegant, and yet beneath his light tone she senseda truth. “I have business partners, enemies, lovers and social acquaintances. I need a friend.”
    It was, of course, the one thing he could say that would move her, but she kept her own face as impassive as his. “You think we can be friends? I must admit friends have been in very short supply recently. But simple friendship between a man and a woman tends to be misinterpreted. Would society approve?” The last trace of her wariness had vanished.
    â€œI doubt it, and I doubt you care. It does seem like we don’t have a large pool of prospective friends to pick from. Tolerant people are fairly thin on the ground around here. I don’t think one should dismiss possibilities too swiftly without due consideration.”
    She looked at him for a long, meditative moment. In some ways he seemed like a little boy, cherishing his differences even as he hated them. And yet it wouldn’t do to underestimate him. Despite his scarred face and wounded body he seemed oddly…potent. Masculine. And after her wretched mistake, she’d learned to beware of that trait.
    But still, his offer of friendship felt genuine. As if he actually cared about her empty life. And he was right—there hadn’t been many other options.
    â€œI would be honored to count you my friend,” she said abruptly, surprising even herself.
    His answering smile was a revelation. Lucien de Malheur would have been an Adonis if it weren’t for the scarring. When he smiled everything else disappeared.
    She smiled back.
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    To her astonishment the hours slipped by as they talked, and she realized he was someone she haddreamed about. A friend, rather than a lover. Someone who saw things the way she did, slightly askew. He made her laugh, particularly when he was doing his best to sound tortured and villainous, and she loved puncturing his perverted vanity.
    â€œI can see you as some plucky Shakespearian heroine,” he said at one point. “Not quite a Miranda—you’re no wizard’s daughter. More likely someone who dresses in boy’s clothes and runs into the forest, like Rosalind or Viola, and tricks the poor young hero into being fool enough to think he’s fallen in love with another man.”
    â€œPerhaps. I’m sure you’d like to think of yourself as Othello, all broody and tortured, but I see you as more of a Caliban, not nearly so monstrous as you’d like to believe.”
    He looked at her for a long moment, and she met his gaze fearlessly. “No, my lady,” He said gently. “Wrong play. I’m Richard the Third, determined to prove a villain.”
    She laughed, because there was no other response, and his answering smile was faint enough that she felt some lingering unease surface again. He was joking, of course. But looking into his pale eyes she wasn’t quite certain.
    She was still thinking about that moment as she rode home, comfortably ensconced in his elegant carriage, the same one that had carried her in the rain. It had been brought to a side door, and he’d accompanied her out there, away from the guests, tucking her in, catching her hand in his and holding it for a