Once Upon a Tower by Eloisa James Read Free Book Online Page B

in her father’s eyes when he looked at Layla. But how could that be? He was always criticizing his wife, picking at her for the kind of unguarded and impulsive comments Layla couldn’t help making.
    “Naturally, I hope that you and the duke will be happy together,” her father said.
    “And I hope you have babies!” Layla said. “Lots of babies.”
    The silence that followed that sentence was so desperately tense that Edie found herself leaping to her feet and fleeing the room with little more than a mumbled apology.
    Layla and her father had certainly loved each other when they married, but then he had begun to criticize the very qualities he once adored. The worst of it was the sense of disappointment that hung in the air around them.
    Above all, she and Kinross had to avoid that sort of situation. A modicum—perhaps even an excess—of rational conversation was necessary.

Seven
    G owan did not spend his time waiting for the post from London to arrive. That would be petty and beneath him. Besides, he had sent his letter by one of his most trusted grooms, instructing him to wait for a response. Since he knew the precise length of the journey from London to Brighton, there was no need to consider the matter further.
    Except . . .
    He had easily checked that ungainly emotion, lust, for the first twenty-two years of his life. He scorned the idea of paying coin for intimacy, and a mixture of fastidiousness and honor had kept him from accepting cheerful invitations from married women. What’s more, he had been betrothed at the time, although waiting for Rosaline to reach her majority. He had certainly felt desire, but it had never got the better of him.
    That was before he saw Lady Edith.
    Now he’d dropped the reins, his sensual appetite was proving to be ferocious. He could hardly sleep for dreaming of plump limbs tangled with his. His mind was constantly straying into imagery that would turn a priest pale.
    He couldn’t stop himself, even during occasions that demanded rational thought, such as now. He and Bardolph were working in the private parlor at the New Steine Hotel, waiting for the conference of bankers to reconvene at Pomfrey’s Bank; he was reading letters and signing them while Bardolph read aloud the report of one of his bailiffs.
    He signed whatever Bardolph put in front of him, and imagined that he’d taken his wife to his castle at Craigievar, where clan chiefs had slept for generations. To the bed where his ancestors had consummated their marriages.
    Edith lay beneath him, her hair flung across the bed like rumpled, ancient Chinese silk. He leaned down to caress her, his hand running down her bare shoulder, over skin like cream, and then he kissed her like a man possessed, and her eyes opened, heavy-lidded with desire. Everything in him roared: You’re mine , and she—
    He was brought back to the near side of sanity by the sound of Bardolph coughing.
    Gowan froze, uncomfortably aware that his breeches were stretched to the utmost by one of the hardest erections he’d had in his life. Thank God for the desk between them.
    Slowly he reached out and took the letter that was waiting for his signature.
    “The Chatteris wedding,” he said, glancing down at the page, gratified to find that his voice was steady, if rather guttural.
    Bardolph nodded. “Your gift of a rack of venison and twelve geese has already been dispatched from the estate. This note accepts the invitation the family extended to stay at Fensmore itself. I gather that the guest list is so long that many of them will be housed in nearby inns.”
    Gowan dipped his pen into his inkwell. He held it a second too long, and a large drop rolled from the quill and splashed on the letter. His secretary made a noise that sounded like a dry twig snapping underfoot.
    “I’ll travel with a small retinue: you, Sandleford, and Hendrich,” Gowan said, pushing the letter back so it could be rewritten. “I finished reading Hendrich’s research