Proper Scoundrel by Annette Blair Read Free Book Online

I’ll send Ivy to get you. Yours, M.
     
    p.s. Have Brinkley make a copy of the Smithfield land option deal and bring it with you, but wait until we’re alone to give it to me.
     
    Jade had succeeded in avoiding him all day, Marcus mused after completing his day’s work, and he had no intention of letting her get away with it.
     
    The female members of the household were in final fittings, a maid said. Third floor, west wing. No men allowed.
     
    By God, if seeing Jade meant invading an all-female sanctum, then invade he would.
     
    Halfway up the stairs, Marcus heard the soft tread of little feet behind him and recognized the sound of his shadow.
     
    To make Emily giggle, he turned and scooped her into his arms, but she screamed in fright.
     
    He sat on a stair and held the trembling little form close. “Oh, Emmy-bug, Sweetheart. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you all right?”
     
    “Mucks scare Emmy,” she said with a scold.
     
    “Mucks loves Emmy,” he answered. “Will you forgive me?”
     
    “Treacle toffee?”
     
    “You need to be bribed with sweetmeats, do you?” Gazing at him from beneath her long lashes, finger in her mouth, Emily nodded.
     
    Marcus chuckled, kissing her nose, and stood to carry her back down. “Let’s go see what kind of treats you can charm out of Winkin, and then we’ll go find Lacey, shall we?”
     
    A half hour later, Marcus boldly stepped into a world of silk and lace, curvaceous forms on pedestals and dangerous women with straight pins between their lips.
     
    When he greeted them, they scattered those pins in shrieked surprise, flying out the door he’d entered. And there he stood in an empty room. “Well, damn.”
     
    “Sofia,” came a wonderfully familiar voice. “I’m ready.”
     
    Marcus grinned. Ready like him these days, but he suspected that Jade had no idea what sexual readiness entailed. She’d been too amazed by her own reaction to his touch yesterday.
     
    When he saw her, he stopped outside the door to give his heart and his breathing a minute to calm, for she stood in her underpinnings, on a dais before a row of mirrors, so industriously plucking wayward threads from a piece of fabric that she didn’t notice him.
     
    An assortment of scant frippery caressed Jade’s form, moulding it to divine perfection, making his mouth dry and his palms sweat.
     
    A corset trimmed in pink ribbons pushed up the succulent breasts she’d offered and he’d declined—more fool him. Beneath the corset she wore nothing but a short lace chemise, its tiny pink bow tucked between her breasts. Marcus swallowed. Barely-there drawers ended high on her thighs in bands of lace. Heeled slippers made her long legs, encased in opaque white stockings, appear longer still—legs he wanted wrapped around him.
     
    Seeing her like this, he wanted, needed, even more fiercely, to lay her down and ravish her ... and then he needed to do it again. And he would ... when she “needed” him as ardently.
     
    “You’re perfect,” he said stepping into the room. “Exquisite.”
     
    Like a night animal caught in lantern light, she stilled when she saw him in the mirror behind her, aborting her instinct to cover herself almost as fast as it occurred. She raised her chin instead.
     
    Still behind her, Marcus stroked her form with his heated gaze, from slippered feet to cascading tresses, making his admiration clear.
     
    Despite that, or because of it, she straightened her spine and stood taller, and, by damn, she stood prouder as well.
     
    She had circumnavigated him the day he arrived; now he took his turn to appreciate her from every angle. As much to tease as to savour, he took two slow, silent, sizzling turns about the dais on which she stood so splendidly displayed.
     
    When he stopped before her, she arched an annoyed brow, making him smile inside. “They told me men weren’t allowed,” he said, “but I knew that you, of all people, would understand my need to