Dance of Seduction by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online

terribly concerned, I suppose.”
    Ravenswood shrugged. “It’s a calculated risk we must take for the greater good.”
    “I suspect Lady Clara Stanbourne wouldn’t see it quite that way.”
    “You’ve met?”
    “Lady Clara caught me in a transaction with one of her lads this morning.” Morgan dangled the gold watch in the air. “He was offering me this for sale.”
    Ravenswood blinked and stepped closer. “What the devil—” He patted his pockets, a scowl spreading over his brow.
    As the truth struck Morgan, he began to laugh. “Don’t tell me it’s yours. You are the ‘darling boy’?”
    “Give me that!” Ravenswood snatched it from his hand. When Morgan kept laughing, Ravenswood said glumly, “My mother gave it to me when I was ten.”
    That explained why it looked well-worn. Ravenswood was in his mid-thirties, so the watch must be at least twenty years old.
    The man examined the watch, then shoved it into his scruffy coat. “Bloody pickpockets. That’s what I get for walking here. Must have been when I was crossing Leadenhall, before I stopped in at Pickering’s for breakfast. Some lad burst out from behind a carriage and ran into me.”
    “Ran into you? You fell for the oldest trick in a pickpocket’s book!”
    “I have a lot on my mind these days,” Ravenswood muttered. “So Lady Clara caught you while the boy was trying to sell you the watch?”
    Stifling a laugh, Morgan gave up on tormenting his superior further. “Yes. Fortunately, she misunderstood and thought he was picking my pocket. I let her think it.”
    “And when she discovers the truth?”
    “I’m hoping she won’t. But to be safe, I warned her to keep her lads away.”
    “Devil take it, why did you do that? You’ll rouse suspicion.”
    “I dislike corrupting children on the verge of redemption. That’s too calculated a risk for my taste.”
    “You know very well that any boy who approached you with goods is already halfway to being corrupted again.”
    True. And yet…
    He remembered too well what it was like to hover in doorways to escape the cold, gnawing on day-old baguettes filched from the bakery. To sleep in a thieves’ den, where temporary shelter paid for by a pilfered handkerchief was preferable to a night spent listening to his mother coupling with her latest paramour.
    No matter how corrupt, no child deserved such a life. Turning his back on Ravenswood, he began to straighten the goods on a nearby counter. “Since I’m the one taking all the risks, I’ll choose the ones I can stomach. Now tell me what I need to know about Lady Clara, in case she doesn’t heed my warnings.”
    Ravenswood was silent, as if debating whether further argument was necessary. At last he sighed. “Lady Clara. Hmm. For one thing, she isn’t your typical society female.”

    A fine understatement. A typical society female spent her Monday afternoons paying calls, not collaring impudent scamps. She avoided worsted unless she was poor, and even then she cheated the devil to gain the blunt for fine French muslin. She certainly didn’t spar with lowly sea captains in alleys. “Is she as committed to her cause as she seems?”
    “She’d fight the devil himself for those children.”
    Then the children were fortunate to have the likes of Lady Clara championing them. And judging from young Johnny’s defection, the confounded scamps didn’t even appreciate it. “Has she no family of her own to look after?”
    “Only an aunt who lives with her, I believe. Lady Clara’s parents died some time ago, and she never married. Since she hasn’t attended a marriage mart in years and only goes to other social functions to persuade hapless ladies and gentlemen to contribute to her beloved Home, I expect she never will. Many gentlemen run the other way when they see her coming.”
    “There must be a great many idiots moving in her circle,” Morgan muttered.
    Ravenswood’s low chuckle irritated him. “I’ll admit that she’s pretty. A