Pride & Passion by Charlotte Featherstone Read Free Book Online Page B

usual, Alynwick’s answer to everything was sex.
    “I have no need of your solicitation, Alynwick.”
    “No?” the marquis said with a grin. “Come now,Sussex, you’re a healthy male, living like a monk. It can’t be healthy.”
    He didn’t need any reminders that he hadn’t bedded in a woman in…good God, months! Almost a year, he reminded himself. When Lucy Ashton and her flamered hair had flitted past him, robbing him of breath, speech and rational thought. She’d been a compulsion to him ever since, and every woman he’d seen or met since paled against her.
    “Well?” he asked irritably, when he could no longer stomach the marquis’s antics, or his pitiful one-sided longing for Lucy. “What did you find out on this supposed reconnaissance mission of yours?”
    Alynwick shrugged and crossed his leg over his knee, while his fingers fiddled with a loose thread on his sleeve. “That the new Lady Larabie has the mouth of a pinched fish, and her bosom, which has been much touted, is nothing but the sham of a rather imaginative, yet very hardworking corset.”
    Groaning in frustration, Sussex sent a pleading glance to Black in hopes the earl could knock some sense into Alynwick. Everything was such a damned jest with him. He cared for nothing but frivolities and women, and to hell with anything else.
    “Really?” Black drawled. “A feigned bosom? Poor Larabie. To be drawn in and duped by an artfully arranged décolletage.”
    “Hang Larabie, and bosoms,” Sussex snarled. Alynwick, with that devil’s twinkle in his eye, slunk deeper into his chair and stared at him.
    “Bosoms, Sussex, are the sustenance of the world.How can you not be a devoted follower? I myself find I can be led quite merrily about by a fine pair of—”
    “Alynwick…” he warned.
    “Is this strange aversion of yours to the discussion of breasts in particular, or is it because the ravishing Lady Lucy has but a rather modest bosom?”
    “You ass!” he hissed, and jumped up from his chair with his hand fisted, and his arm pulled back, ready to plant a facer on the marquis. Laughing, Alynwick held up his hands pleading with mock horror.
    “My God, you’re like a baited bear. Sit, you oaf, before you spill my coffee. I swear you’ve lost your sense of humor. This girl has all but sucked it out of you—well, not sucked per se—”
    “Watch your tongue,” Sussex growled in a deep voice, “or I’ll pull it out of your mouth for you.”
    “My, such a strong reaction. I see you’re still moon-faced over the girl. Disgusting what love does to a perfectly healthy and virile man. And what are you smiling about over there?” Alynwick asked, making Black’s grin vanish. “You’re no better, the way you’ve been barricaded in your town house with your new wife.”
    “Mmm, yes, and if you dare say anything about my wife’s bosom, I will flatten you right here. Understood?”
    “Good Lord, I’m surrounded by prigs.”
    “You’ll be surrounded by a pool of blood—your own—if you don’t get on with it, Alynwick,” Sussex growled. He was in no mood for this type of banter before, and he certainly wasn’t now. How dare Alynwick have sized up Lucy, and found her lacking? Damn the man, she had a perfectly lovely bosom, andhe should know, he’d spent months staring at it, and wondering how perfect her breasts were beneath her tight-fitting bodices, and if her nipples were coral or pale pink, and how they might tighten with the graze of his thumb, the tip of his tongue…
    God, he was unraveling. The sooner he could quit the conversation, the better. Alynwick had always been a terrible influence on him.
    “Once more, Alynwick. What was it you discovered?”
    With a sigh, the marquis shoved away his irreverence, and fortified himself with another large gulp of hot coffee. Wincing at the bitterness, he set it down. “False bosom aside, Lady Larabie has a surprisingly naughty nature. Between heated kisses in the hall, she