How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long Read Free Book Online Page A

coincidentally, liked a dare. Almost as much as he disliked entanglements. And wagers foisted upon him.
    “Have you been to London?” he asked her.
    A peculiar hesitation. “Yes.”
    “One can meet . . . a wide variety of people in London.”
    She found this very funny. “You’re proposing I diversify my experience of men in order to hear better compliments? Fear not. I do plan to go abroad. Very abroad. I ought to meet a good many types of gentlemen en route.”
    Deeper and deeper he fell into the conversation, fascinated despite himself. “Where do you plan to go?”
    Another brief hesitation.
    “I should like to go to Africa.”
    “Africa!” She may as well have said the moon. What on earth did one say to this? Missionaries did go on missions to Africa. He imagined they needed teachers.
    “To . . . work?” He delivered the word gingerly, after a pause.
    She burst into laughter.
    It was the best thing he’d heard in a very long time, that laugh, better than any opera or musicale, better than birdsong or the sound of hooves clattering around a racetrack or the sighs of a mistress or any of his other favorite sounds. Her eyes vanished completely and her head tipped back and he could even see molars. He basked, astonished and pleased.
    “Oh, my goodness, Lord Dryden. You should have seen your face when you said the word work . It’s not counted among the deadly sins, you know. But I thought, yes, that’s what I would do there.”
    “With . . . missionaries?” He frantically riffled his brain for anything at all he knew about Africa and why people would go there. “Perhaps to teach?”
    “Yes.”
    “Because . . . you are so saintly?”
    Imagine that. Now he was flirting a little.
    The smile she gave him here was the very opposite of saintly. Slow, and crooked and pure imp.
    She didn’t say a word. The smile answered for her. And to his surprise, he felt that smile at the nape of his neck, and in places lower on his body.
    “Or perhaps it’s because you have need of reforming?” He’d lowered his voice.
    She dodged that question, too.
    Losing your nerve, Madame Schoolteacher?
    “I want to see the world, quite simply.”
    “Some people start with Italy. Or Brighton.”
    “I thought perhaps I would begin at the far end and work my way back.”
    He laughed. He was officially enjoying himself. “I was simply taking a guess, you know, regarding the work. The possibility remained that perhaps you were going with your husband for his own duties, or to take in the climate, which is like living atop a stove, from what I understand. And a woman should not have to . . .”
    He realized what he was about to say and stopped himself.
    “Work? It’s all right. I shan’t tell anyone you used the dreaded W word multiple times in front of me.”
    “. . . if she has a husband, brother, or father to care for her.”
    “Precisely,” was all she said.
    So she’d none of those in her life? Who then, did she have? Surely she was young enough—or old enough—to have any or all of them. She possessed all of her limbs and she wasn’t otherwise deformed. Surely she could have married by now if she’d wished to. Perhaps she was a widow? She didn’t look or act the part.
    “It’s just . . . well . . .” She took a deep breath. “Honestly, Lord Dryden, aren’t you ever bored with the same pleasures and pursuits? Don’t you ever feel . . . confined ?”
    Imagine anyone asking him such a question.
    “What makes you think I indulge in the same pleasures and pursuits often enough to bore of them?
    “I read the London broadsheets.”
    Oh.
    “It hasn’t been all unrelieved debauchery , you know. I am particular about my pleasures.”
    “You don’t say.”
    His mouth tipped up at the corner. “I have a number of pressing duties.”
    “Attending to your estate s .” She lingered on that final S with gentle mockery.
    Well, it was true he had as many estates as he had titles. More, in fact. His