Counterfeit Countess by Lynne Connolly Read Free Book Online Page A

family, nine boys and most of them went into the army or the navy. Most have done well for themselves. I don’t have a lot to do with them these days. They are strangers to me.”
    So after Waterloo she’d been effectively alone. Nobody to turn to, and while her husband had been an officer he had the lowest rank and consequently would have barely anything to leave a widow. She could have been destitute. The similarity of their names must have formed too much of a temptation for her.
    “So you had nothing?”
    “And no one.”
    COUNTERFEIT COUNTESS | 39
    There, she’d given him total honesty on that point. Relief flooded him. He understood. Not a designing adventuress, then, more a poverty-stricken woman with nobody to help her. He wasn’t mistaken in his assessment of her. She’d taken the step she had from desperation, and the conviction that she was harming no one.
    The thought impelled him to draw closer still. He slid his hand over her delightfully trim waist in a gesture more protective than desirous, although he guessed from the way his cock stirred that wouldn’t last long. Her side pressed against him, her breasts plumped by her arms, especially when she raised a hand. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to push him away and he waited, tense, until she relaxed and smoothed her palm down his chest to rest under his ribs. He smiled his encouragement but she did no more. Just as well, he supposed. He hadn’t finished talking to her yet.
    He had to make one matter clear. As soon as he’d climbed through the window and seen the carpetbag, he’d known what she’d planned. “You weren’t packing to move to Grosvenor Square, were you?”
    She glanced down, then back at him, pretty colour mantling her cheeks again. She couldn’t have missed his state of tumescence.
    Their proximity completed what had started a bare minute ago and he hardened for her, his body begging for a repeat performance.
    “No.”
    He kept his voice soft and unthreatening. “What exactly did you think you would do?”
    “I’d disappear. I’m not unemployable, I could make a living.”
    She shrugged. “I still can. I left the marriage lines to John Smith and a letter declaring that we were never married. It’s on the table, with the deeds to this house and a promissory note for whatever funds you feel I owe you.”
    “Could you get a position with no character references?” He grazed the top of her buttocks with his thumb. Perfectly rounded.
    40 | Lynne Connolly
    She snorted. “Please. As if I can’t handle that.”
    The concept interested him. “How would you do that?”
    “I’d reference my mother, who would do anything rather than have me back home and an old friend who married well. She’ll help me, and be discreet about it if I asked her. Or I’d forge something.”
    He laughed, a gentle chuckle. “Anyone who thinks women are helpless should consult you.” He wanted to kiss her, but he held off, because he suspected he wouldn’t stop once he’d begun. Already he desired her with a desperation entirely new, an emotion he badly needed to process before he gave into it again. On the first occasion her nearness to him had provoked him into kissing her, and then more followed as day did night. His lack of control worried him, even while he planned to make love to her at least once more tonight. This time with no mercy. “So you’d disappear, live a miserable life as a poorly paid employee. Why did you do it in the first place?” Confirmation. Coming at the question again, so he could watch the way she reacted.
    She bit her lip. “I didn’t think I was doing anyone any harm.
    Without a wife your army pension would have died with you. My only extravagance was this house. I was harming nobody. But now I know you’re alive, you don’t deserve I should do this to you.”
    “Do what? Prevent the dowager from foisting one of her daughters on to me?” He watched her take the piece of information in. Her pretty eyes widened,