Midnight Pleasures by Eloisa James Read Free Book Online

“Well, they’re big, beautiful, big for a small girl like herself.”
    Ice crept down Patrick’s backbone and his hands trembled. He was going to have to hit the son of a bitch. The blood was pulsing in his head.
    “I caught her against the stable door,” Braddon continued, blissfully unaware of Patrick’s expression. “I kind of caught up against her and grabbed her from behind and just gave her a little tweak, and my God I have never felt—”
    His voice broke off as a hand lunged from the chair opposite and grabbed his neck cloth, twisting violently. The cloth cut off his windpipe. Braddon froze, his mouth agape, making no effort to free himself.
    Actually they both froze for an instant as Patrick realized he had no right, no right at all, to admonish a man for pinching his future wife. He threw Braddon back into the chair, which creaked ominously as some two hundred fifty pounds crashed back into its velvet arms.
    Alex’s cool tones fell into the silence, a silence that had drifted through the whole room. The few people left at the ball were galvanized by the protesting chair, alerted like hounds at the whiff of a deer. Something was happening, something more interesting than the stale fragments of gossip being served up at that late hour.
    “Braddon,” Alex remarked, “has found himself a new mistress, Patrick.”
    Braddon gaped at Patrick, his puppy eyes confused. “I thought you didn’t give a damn about Arabella,” he said, his voice aggrieved. “You could have told me earlier if you were affronted when I took on Arabella.”
    Patrick sat back in his chair, deliberately making his body relax. “Next time, ask me before you poach,” he drawled.
    The little group on the other side of the ballroom turned back into a circle, their voices purring with interest. Everyone knew about Foakes’s ex-mistress, the actress Arabella Calhoun, and her move to the protection of the Earl of Slaslow. Fascinating, though. No one thought that Foakes gave a damn.
    Why, the story had been that Foakes extended her lease for six months and then sent a copy of the bill over to Slaslow with a scrawled note of compliment. Fascinating. When curious glances cast toward Slaslow and the Foakes brothers promised no further excitement that night, the last little band of fashionable folk began to inch toward the door. Best to go on to a club and have a last brandy before heading home.
    Braddon felt unpleasantly shaken, sitting with Patrick’s disturbing eyes narrowed on him.
    “Damme it, man, Arabella came under my protection ages ago! You can’t have expected that I’d keep the woman forever.” He worked up a wisp of indignation. “I paid her lease for the next six months, and I sent over a rope of emeralds. What did you expect me to do, Patrick? Marry her, for God’s sake?”
    Patrick opened his mouth and clapped it shut again.
    Alex’s dispassionate voice broke in. “I’d like to hear about your Madeleine. Where did you find her?”
    Braddon’s eyes shifted uneasily to Alex. Then back to Patrick, and a flash of true anger straightened his backbone. “You don’t know Madeleine, do you? She’s mine, Foakes, mine !”
    At that, Patrick’s mouth unwillingly quirked up. “Lord, Braddon, we’ve shared enough, don’t you think?”
    “Well, Arabella was one thing.” Braddon’s eyes were burning now. “But Madeleine is different. She’s going to be mine and mine alone, forever.”
    “An unusual arrangement,” Alex observed.
    Braddon swung belligerently over to Alex, for all the world like a bulldog trying to answer two masters. “Not at all. My own father kept one mistress for thirty-six years. Lord knows I’m still paying her bills. Not that I mind. She’s a good old thing, and kind. She was beautiful too, not like m’mother. I go and have tea with her sometimes, talk about m’father.”
    Alex stated the obvious: “Your wife … your future wife … is a very beautiful woman.”
    “It’s not the same.”