Love With a Scandalous Lord by Lorraine Heath Read Free Book Online Page A

dined on the glazed duck—after all nothing except bones remained on his plate as the footman carried it away. But he could not remember its taste or texture, because ever since he and his guests had sat down to dinner, he’d been unable to distract himself from the enticing Miss Westland.
    Had he thought her a child? Dear Lord, but she had alabaster shoulders that begged for a man’s lips to play lightly over them. While her lips were incredibly quick to smile. He could well imagine their taste, their softness, their warmth. He clearly envisioned them parted in passion, while her violet eyes smoldered and darkened with desire.
    Clearing his throat, he signaled for the next course to be brought to him. He had no business thinking of Grayson’s stepdaughter in any manner other than as a respected guest.
    Despite the fact that this evening she resembled analluring woman, he didn’t dare overlook the fact she was still an innocent, or that his half-brother had, on more than one occasion during the meal, glowered at Rhys as though he knew the exact path down which his wayward thoughts traveled.
    He had little doubt Grayson had adopted some rather savage tendencies while he’d been in Texas. Rhys had no wish to put them to a test.
    “Tell me, Miss Westland, do you play the piano?” Rhys asked, suddenly desperate to break through the uncomfortable silence hovering in the dining room.
    The woman—no, the girl . He had to train his mind to view her as a girl, an innocent, a naïve child. But his mind refused to be trained, refused to see her as anything other than the beguiling young woman she was.
    She lifted her napkin and touched it to each corner of her luscious mouth before responding with a hesitant smile. “No, my lord.”
    “A pity. The harp?”
    She shook her head slightly, her cheeks blossoming into the shade of a faded rose. “No.”
    “I’m afraid working the farm hasn’t given the children much time to learn the finer arts,” Grayson explained.
    “I see,” Rhys murmured. Taking a sip of wine, he glanced at his brother. “Then you engage in the actual labor yourself?”
    “We pay laborers to work in the cotton fields. We hire cowboys to watch over the cattle and drive them to market. But a good deal of what needs to be done, we either do ourselves or we oversee those who do it.”
    “The ladies as well?”
    “The ladies as well,” Grayson answered, almost in a challenge.
    Rhys shifted his gaze to Miss Westland. She was staring at her plate as though she hoped to see the Waterford imprint on the bottom. Mortified. She was clearly mortified.
    “I find that dedication admirable,” he said quietly.
    She shyly shifted her gaze to his and bestowed upon him a grateful smile that made him wish he’d never instigated the conversation. So sweet, so charitable, so wrong for him.
    “Do you read, Miss Westland?” he asked, fighting to keep the formality in the dining room, when he had an irrational urge to lean toward her and ask what he could bestow upon her that would keep the smile gracing her face.
    “Oh, yes, I love to read.”
    “Perhaps you would be so kind as to honor us with a reading following dinner?”
    Her eyes lit up as though he’d just offered her a chest filled with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.
    “I’d like to read aloud very much,” she said.
    “Splendid. It has been some years since my mother read to us in the library during the evening. I rather miss it.”
    “I suppose Papa missed it as well once he moved to Texas. He always reads to us after supper.”
    “Grayson was never included in our little family gathering,” he said.
    She jerked back slightly as though he’d slapped her. He didn’t know why he felt a need to talk bluntly, to reveal the ugly side of his family.
    “I hope you’ll forgive me if I speak frankly, but I’m having a difficult time seeing your mother as anything except cruel.”
    Her outburst intrigued him, not only because itseemed out of place when