Gayle Buck by The Desperate Viscount Read Free Book Online Page B

“But first—”
    In two swift strides, he had reached her and hauled her, astonished, into his arms. With one hand he forced up her chin. He kissed her ruthlessly, for several seconds, before thrusting her from him quite abruptly.
    Lady Althea staggered as her hand brushed a chair back, and she clung to it for balance. Her eyes were huge dark pools as she lifted her other hand to touch her swollen lips. Her lovely face was flushed and a pulse beat openly at the base of her slender throat.
    She had never appeared more beautiful, but her beauty left Lord St. John untouched.
    ‘Think on that when you wed your dried, old stick of a duke, my lady!” said the viscount savagely. He strode to the door and flung it open. Without a backward glance, he exited. The door crashed shut behind him.
    On the carpet, forgotten where they had dropped, were his driving gloves.
    Lady Althea stared at the gloves, seeing in them the latent power of the viscount’s fingers. She shuddered, slowly rubbing her bare arms, where the sensation of the bruising cruelty of his hands lingered.
    * * * *
    Lord St. John left the Earl of Cowltern’s town house without a thought given to where he was headed. Vaulting onto the seat of his phaeton, he whipped up his team, scarcely granting the boy holding his horses time to leap out of the way.
    He was consumed with rage at this latest, and cruelest, blow. It seemed that everything that he had depended upon, everything that had undergirded his life, was but a hollow mockery. Society was riddled with hypocrisy—on the one hand touting birth and honorable qualities as the highest attributes, and on the other cutting at one stroke one of their number who had been credited with such, but who seemed to have lost all redeeming value together with his expected inheritance.
    Lady Althea was the very essence of one of the favored ones. But he had fallen outside the shining circle, and she could not now be bothered with such as him. The betrayal was stunning for its very unexpectedness.
    He had never been in love with Lady Althea, nor she with him. Theirs had been a cold-blooded agreement that would have served to ally two old and respected families. He had expected to acquire a suitable bride and hostess, one who would have brought a substantial dowry and would in time have produced the necessary heir. She had expected to become mistress of her own household and to enjoy the social position that her fortunate birth had decreed was hers by right.
    Though there had never been a spark of feeling between them, neither had found the other physically displeasing. As for strength of personality, Lord St. John and Lady Althea had discovered that they were fairly evenly matched. Each had the determination and the selfishness not to be overtrodden by the other, and this had engendered a mutual, though tepid, respect.
    On the whole, it had been a satisfactory arrangement.
    One which had been blown to flinders.
    Lord St. John drove for an hour or more. He gave no thought to his destination, only to the desire for constant movement, while his dark reflections occupied his mind. He stopped only to rest his horses at an out-of-the-way inn and there discovered a very tolerable Madeira.
    * * * *
    It was full night when he returned to London. He stopped only long enough at his town house to change and to give over his exhausted team into the care of his groom before he set his steps toward the club.
    Mr. Underwood and Lord Heatherton were pleasantly surprised when Lord St. John appeared to join them for dinner. “I thought you would be at Lady Pothergill’s,” said Mr. Underwood.
    The viscount threw himself carelessly into a chair. His hooded eyes gleamed above the smile that twisted his thin lips. “I am out of favor, my friend. Her ladyship showed her true colors this afternoon.”
    He spoke so bitterly that Mr. Underwood and Lord Heatherton exchanged a comprehensive glance. They thereafter applied themselves to the task of