Our Wicked Mistake by Emma Wildes Read Free Book Online

he would bring it up himself. It isn’t my business, or yours, for that matter, if something is awry.”
     
    “Pardon me if I am concerned about my brother.”
    He knew that stubborn set to her soft mouth. Miles Hawthorne uttered an inner curse and resisted the urge to grab Elizabeth’s slender shoulders and drag her out through the French doors to the terrace and explain in the plainest terms possible how little the average male liked an interfering female trying to order his life.
    Or drag her out there and do something else entirely. A passionate kiss came to mind. It came to mind quite often, in fact, when he was around Elizabeth.
    If they were really cousins, this would never have happened, but he’d known since he was old enough to understand the complexities of the situation that they weren’t related. His widowed mother had married Eliz abeth’s father’s cousin only a few years after Miles was born, and they had moved to the Daudet estate. There wasn’t a drop of shared blood between him and Eliza beth. He was so conscious of it, the knowledge disor dered his life.
    She disordered his life.
    This evening she was striking in deep rose tulle that bared the creamy upper swells of her breasts, the low cut of the bodice emphasizing the graceful column of her neck. Her shining hair was upswept, and at the moment her eyes, the signature striking Daudet silver, regarded him with haughty disdain. High cheekbones held a hint of outraged color.
    She wasn’t classically beautiful, but was still consid ered a beauty. It was hard to define, and he’d love to spend a lifetime trying to analyze it. Those luminous, long-lashed eyes dominated her delicate face, and her chin was a shade square, her nose tilted up at the tip in a piquant angle. . . . When she was younger the combination lent her an elfin look, all eyes and long, curling hair, but as a woman, it lent her distinction from the perfect, blond, incomparable ideal of the ton . The color of her hair was impossible to define, waves of dark chestnut with a touch of gold in the light, and a hint of auburn as well.
    Part of the allure, he knew, was her vitality. Elizabeth rarely did anything halfway. Some poor, unsuspecting man was going to have a devil of a time keeping her out of trouble once she was wed.
    Some very lucky man, sod him .
    She was glaring at him now with unconcealed irritation. Nothing new in that .
    “Luke managed to stay alive during a war in Spain,” Miles pointed out, returning her look with unperturbed steadiness. “He’s titled, wealthy, and thirty years of age. He doesn’t need you fretting over him. I daresay he’d be annoyed just to learn we’d had this conversation.”
    She crossed her arms under her breasts in a militant fashion. “Well, he won’t ever know we had this conversation, will he? And I still say you could at least talk to him. For whatever reason, he likes you.”
    Elizabeth could needle him like no one else. Miles took a moment and then replied, “Your gift at bestowing compliments rivals my own. I could list a goodly amount of reasons he would like me, first and foremost being I have no inclination to interfere in his life.”
    “I’m merely asking you to—”
    “No.” A few familiar strains floated out from the orchestra. Miles arched his brows and looked at his cousin. “The subject is dropped, El. Shall we dance? Unless you are, of course, eager to have the next waltz with Porter, who is determinedly heading this way.”
    The diversion worked. A look of panic crossed her face. “I’d even rather dance with you than him. Hurry.”
    “I’m flattered, of course.” He caught her hand and led her toward the floor. “Porter being a dead bore and all.”
    Elizabeth had the grace to laugh. She was graceful in other ways too as she swirled into his arms, though a polite distance naturally separated them, and her hand rested primly on his shoulder.
    They’d danced together countless times, since they’d both had