Improper Pleasures (The Pleasure Series #1) by Cheryl Howe Read Free Book Online Page B

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their surname over the years, the village still looks to you as their lord.  
Don’t disappoint them.”  She had to gain some sense of decorum with him for her
own sanity. And he needed to take her advice and not be so defensive.
    “I do wish to be accepted and I will be. Did you not hear
my Auntie Phillina? I am the spitting image of a Keane.”
    Astra stiffened. “There is more to your position than
filling out the clothes, my lord.”
    “Ah yes, a curse, I believe. Why do you look so
distressed? I’m quite a lucky bastard. When you think about it, I survived the
war only to end up an English baron.”
    “And for that to happen four men died in short order,
including your father. I hope you do not intend to go back on our truce because
you think Lady Phillina will take your side. I can assure you she will not.”
Astra didn’t understand his manner in the least.
    “I can see your mother-in-law is quite taken with you. You
might have Lady Phillina fooled but not me.” He winked at her and Astra went
cold. What had he discovered? Astra had been hiding so many secrets for so
long, she could only imagine what this intruder knew, or at least thought he
knew.
    “I have never tried to fool Lady Phillina in any matter
whatsoever. We share a genuine regard.” Astra’s words could not be more
truthful. It was what Lady Phillina overlooked in favor of genuine regard that
tormented Astra.
    “Are your cheeks flushed, Astra?” James laughed. “I think
I’ve discovered a ripple in your placid exterior.”
    “I shall not be threatened by your innuendos. Obviously,
you are holding some secret knowledge, real or imagined, against my character.
I demand that you reveal yourself this instant.” Astra’s heart pounded. She
must know what he had discovered and more importantly what he intended to do
with the information.
    “Interesting choice of words, but I think you’re right. We
shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, seeing as we are both depending on the
other.” James strode to the door of his bedroom. “Shall we?”
    He was trying to unnerve her, but she would not cower. Not
now, perhaps not ever again. She had been given the chance to participate in
her own life instead of being locked behind closed doors and she would not
scamper away like a frightened virgin.
    She militantly stomped into the bedroom.
    James repositioned himself in the doorway leaning against
the door frame, his arms folded over his chest. “Look familiar.”
    “I have been mistress of Eastlan for several years now.”
She held her shoulder’s stiff. “I would be remiss if I did not know every nook
of its vast interior. Your point?” She studied the room with the bed’s large
carved headboard and the matching mahogany furnishings, keeping her back to one
bureau in particular. What was he getting at?
    “Step back a foot.” His grin, lazy and confident, assured
her he enjoyed making her the brunt of his private joke. She followed his
direction, some of her tension easing with the silliness of his game.
    “Good. Stop. Now two small steps to your right. Stop.
Perfect.”
    She glanced around the room and discovered nothing
innocuous. What was it? Even the large bed that dominated the room was covered
by a russet-colored spread and littered with laced-edge pillows that bordered
on the effeminate, taking the innuendo out of the forbidden chamber. “I find
nothing out of the ordinary.”
    “Look directly in front of you.”
    A wall papered in dark brown flowers and cream stripes
held an artful arrangement of painted landscapes and a single over-sized
mirror. James wiggled his fingers in a cocky wave from his leaning position on
the door jam and she noticed how the angle where she stood perfectly reflected
the doorway…and a bit beyond.
    He’d seen her!  
    He had not been simply staring at a wall in front of him
while the maid kneeled before him and…he had been staring in the mirror
directly at Astra watching them. She closed her