Pursued By The Viscount by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

expected year of mourning, only ventured back into Society— Oh.” She realized now that this man had started to pursue her almost as soon as she returned to Society. Because he had been waiting for that day? Like that spider weaving his web?
    “When. How. What. If,” he dismissed with scorn. “Since your return, you have indulged in a dalliance with me, and now it seems you have set your sights on Brooketon. You are a slut and a whore, madam. James called you that, you know. His little whore. And sluts and whores need to be punished for their sins.”
    “I have committed no sin!” It hurt, God, how it hurt, to learn that James had spoken of her in so derogatory a way to his lover. Laughed at her naïveté and inexperience, no doubt.  
    “You are guilty of emotional, if not physical, infidelity with me. By taking someone as rich and powerful as Brooketon for your lover, you are guilty of avarice as well as adultery.”
    “I cannot be an adulterer when I am no longer married.”
    “You besmirch James’s memory with your sluttish behavior.”  
    Rachel felt the prick of tears in her eyes at having that disgusting name leveled at her. Could this man be insane? Had she been saved from one tormentor only to find her every move plagued by another? With this one set on revenge for something she’d had no control over?
    She had looked up to and respected James before their marriage, if not after it. Now her husband’s lover dared to call her disgusting names and issue threats? It was unfair—
    “Are you ready to leave?” Brooketon prompted.  
    Rachel spun round to look about the entrance hall for her tormentor. But there was only Brooketon and herself here, and the stoic-faced butler waiting to open the door for their departure.
    She had not imagined that conversation. Or the names he had called her. And the unspecified threat in his words.
    “Rachel?”
    She focused on Lucien, his expression quizzical, those piercing blue eyes seeming to see into her very soul. What did he see there, she wondered? That slut and whore she had just been called? Or something else?
    “Did something happen while I was gone?” Lucien frowned at how pale Rachel’s face had become in his absence.  
      “No… I… Perhaps I should return to my own home, after all.”
    Lucien studied her searchingly, aware she had avoided answering his question. She appeared agitated, and her gaze refused to meet his own. He glanced across at the Walkers’ butler, the elderly gentleman giving a barely perceptible nod of his head. In confirmation that someone had spoken to Rachel in Lucien’s absence?
    “We will discuss it further in my carriage.” He took a firm hold of her elbow as he walked her toward the door. “I expect to hear from you in the morning,” he addressed the butler quietly, so that Rachel did not hear, sure the other man would be able to shed some light on what had happened during Lucien’s absence to have brought about this change of heart in Rachel.
    “Certainly, my lord.” The elderly man gave a respectful bow as he opened the door.
    A frown marred Lucien’s brow minutes later as he gazed across at Rachel from the opposite side of his carriage. He wished now that he had sat beside her, would have liked to take her in his arms and try to dispel some of that air of despair that now seemed to surround her almost as closely as the cloak she had wrapped around her so defensively.
    “I will instruct my driver to go directly to your home.” There was no need for further discussion on the subject, he realized.
    She avoided meeting his eyes in the soft glow of the lantern lit inside the carriage. “You must think me a coward.”
    “I think you are a very brave lady who has survived brutality from a quarter she should have least expected to find it.”
    She straightened as if stung. “I do not want your pity!”
      “Perhaps that is as well, because you do not have it,” he stated. “Respect? Yes. Admiration? Also yes.