Jilting the Duke by Rachael Miles Read Free Book Online

interrupted, “and it will be beautiful on you. Tom was very specific that the dress should be ready by the anniversary of his death. He must have intended you to wear it when you met with Aidan.”
    â€œTom?” Sophia’s eyes misted, but only for a moment. “But how?”
    â€œYou are not the only one who received a letter.” Ophelia motioned Sally and the seamstress into action. “Mine came some weeks ago and included a fashion plate and that exquisite material. Tom gave me permission to reject the design if it were out of style, but it was lovely. Now put it on. I’ll be back within the hour.”
    * * *
    â€œSo that’s how it is then?” Barlow assessed the clothes Aidan had chosen for his meeting. After more than a decade of service, Barlow measured Aidan’s mood better than any other man.
    â€œYes, that’s how it is. To dress too much à la mode would suggest I can be swayed by society or by the vagaries of public opinion.”
    â€œOr by an old lover, barely out of mourning,” Barlow muttered.
    â€œI never claimed we were lovers.”
    â€œNo need to; I had my own eyes in the camps for that.” Barlow held out the forest-green superfine waistcoat with matching velvet collar. “Beware vengeance, your grace. It clouds the judgment.”
    Aidan adjusted the puffed edge of the neckline, then lifted his chin for Barlow to twist the starched linen into a complicated cravat knot. “Much between us remains unresolved, that’s all.”
    Barlow snorted and went to the wardrobe to retrieve Aidan’s boots.
    Barlow was wrong, Aidan assured himself. His revenge was already a decade in the making; he would not misstep. During the long years of the Wilmots’ absence, he’d mastered the double-edged reply. “I was there when they met” suggested that he’d known of Tom’s tendre for Sophia from the first. Instead Aidan meant that he had never forgotten the day he and Tom had gone to a country fair and seen Sophia, in a blue muslin gown with flowers embroidered above her feet, sunlight falling on her rich dark hair. Her serious gray eyes had met Aidan’s gaze and not turned away, and he had found himself desperate for an introduction. No, if anyone asked Aidan’s opinion of the Wilmot marriage, he would offer a knowing wink and a conspiratorial “clever Sophia,” appearing to compliment Lady Wilmot’s success in catching a husband when he actually meant that Sophia had deceived him thoroughly.
    Aidan already knew what he wanted from the end of their affair, for an affair it would be. He would gain Sophia’s trust, then betray it, watching the expression in her large gray eyes change as she realized his deception. Confusion, disbelief, awareness, hurt, betrayal, and then perhaps even despair. Best yet if he could leave her wondering not if but when he would reveal her frailty. Yes, he would leave her no peace as she had left him none.
    But he did not yet know how to accomplish that revenge. First he would have to meet his opponent and take her measure. Would Sophia be the lover of his youth, the cold fortune hunter who married Tom, the distant and inscrutable statue of Aldine’s experience—or the ghost in the garden filling him with desire? Aidan would adapt his campaign and his demeanor to whichever Sophia came to their meeting.
    Straightening his cuffs, Aidan examined himself in the mirror. His clothes were well-tailored, boasting enough color to suggest wealth and class and enough restraint to convey power and control. Exactly the image he wished to convey—he wanted to leave no room for Lady Wilmot to remember the callow boy she had so easily deceived. “This will do.”
    Barlow snorted, brushing the shoulders of Aidan’s coat. “It’s one thing, your grace, to destroy a person for the nation’s sake; it’s another to do it for your own ends. In the end,