Dangerous to Hold by Elizabeth Thornton Read Free Book Online Page B

he’d made the obvious connection. But when she’d opened her mouth, the cultured accent had thrown him. He’d only wanted to satisfy himself that she wasn’t Catalina. But it had infuriated him when she’d tried to shoot him.
    He shook his head, remembering his confusion when he’d removed her bonnet and the torrent of fiery-red hair had tumbled around her shoulders. He’d noticed other differences that he hadn’t noticed before. Her complexion was fair. There were freckles on her nose. Her features were delicate, refined. And afterward, when she came to herself, she had not possessed a particle of Catalina’s sexual allure. That was something about Catalina he remembered very well. She’d seduced him with her unawakened sensuality. And he, fool that he was, had been taken in by it, believing that he had found the love that had always eluded him.
    No, Miss Courtnay was no Catalina, though she had made quite an impression on him in her own way. She was remote and cool on the surface, but easily aroused to temper. It made a man wonder if there was passion there too.
    He didn’t regret the kiss. She’d kicked him, actually kicked him in the shins, and that had never happened to him before. Just thinking about it made him laugh out loud. She amused him, and that too was a first. And she also aroused his curiosity.
    There were questions that continued to tease his mind. She still had not told him what she was doing at Amy’s house. And there were other things that puzzled him: her panic when he’d first run into her; why she was going alone around London late at night; and most puzzling of all—why she was armed with a pistol. As much as anything, that’s what had convinced him that she was Catalina.
    Miss C. Courtnay was a puzzle he meant to solve.
    His first port of call, he decided, would be Amy. He and Amy went back a long way. She’d once been his mistress, but now they were friends, good friends. If Amy knew anything, she would tell him.

Chapter 3
    Marcus remembered the reverie very well. He’d been hiding out in
El Grande’s
mountain retreat, recovering from his wounds, and his mind had wandered to England. He’d dreamed of balls, and beautiful English girls in their pale, transparent gauzes, with fragrant hair and soft skin.
    And here he was living the reverie, propping up one of the pillars of Lady Tarrington’s magnificent ballroom, and he was bored out of his mind. Nothing had changed in the five years he’d been out of England, fighting the French. The same tedious conversations went on around him; the same beautiful girls hung on his every word; the same tawdry
affaires
flourished among the married set. Only the names and faces had changed. If his hostess had not been his godmother, he would have turned on his heel and made his escape.
    Welcome home, Marcus
, he thought ruefully, and drained the champagne in his glass.
    He remembered that it was on an evening just such as this that he’d had a notion to do something different with his life. His twenty-ninth birthday had loomed on the horizon, and he’d felt as old as Methuselah. He’d seen everything, done everything, and that was a sad state of affairs for a young man who had yet to come into his prime. Everything was too easy. There was nothing to strive for. His financial affairs were managed by the best professional minds money could buy, and his half brother, Penniston, ran the day-to-day operation of the Wrotham estates as well as any steward they could hire. There was no need for him to marry and beget heirs if he chose not to. If anything happened to Marcus, there were two halfbrothers who could succeed to the title. Gaming, drinking, and wenching had become his way of life. He’d had everything that could make a young man happy, only he wasn’t happy, he was restless, and there was no explaining it.
    He couldn’t remember who had first made the wager. He remembered there were four of them, and that they had decamped none too