Surrender by Amanda Quick Read Free Book Online

admitted.
    “It certainly affords you a far greater opportunity for bringing down a wave of humiliation and social disaster on your lovely head, Miss Huntington. If it got out that you have a taste for running around London at night dressed as a man, your reputation would be in shreds within twenty-four hours.”
    Victoria wrapped her fingers even more firmly around the handle of her walking stick. “What an odd thing for you to say, sir. Do you know, your attitude quite takes me by surprise. I would have thought you less of a prig. I suppose the card game at the ball misled me. Don’t you have any taste for adventure? No, I suppose you don’t. You are, after all, a good friend of Lady Atherton’s are you not?”
    The woman was deliberately baiting him. Lucas wished very strongly that they were alone in the carriage. “I do not know what you are implying, Miss Huntington, but I assure you, Lady Atherton is above reproach.”
    “Well, yes, that is just the point. Everyone knows Jessica Atherton would never in a million years allow herself to be found in this carriage on her way to the fair tonight,” Victoria declared.
    Annabella giggled again. “That is certainly the truth.”
    “Are you implying Lady Atherton is a prig?” Lucas demanded.
    Victoria shrugged, the movement surprisingly sensual in the well-cut jacket. “I mean no offense, my lord. Just that she isn’t the sort of female who enjoys adventure. One naturally has to assume that her friends are equally limited in their choice of entertainment and equally disapproving of those who have broader tastes.”
    “And you are a woman who enjoys adventure?” Stonevale baited.
    “Oh, yes, my lord. I enjoy it very much.”
    “Even though it carries with it the risk of ruining yourself in Society?”
    “There would be no real adventure if there were no real risk, would there, my lord? I would have thought a successful gamester such as yourself would understand that.”
    Her words made him more uneasy than ever. “You may be right, Miss Huntington. But I have always preferred risks in which the odds were at least somewhat in my favor.”
    “How very dull your life must be, sir.”
    Lucas instinctively started to react to the goading remark but caught himself in time. His self-control reasserted itself, along with his sense of reason. The last thing he could afford now was to have his quarry declare him a priggish bore. His instincts told him Victoria would respond to a challenge or even an all-out battle of wills, but she would ignore him entirely if he managed to bore her.
    A priggish bore
. Good God. The thought of that label stuck on him was enough to make him laugh. It was certainly not the usual description applied to his character. But around Miss Huntington, Lucas discovered, he was rapidly developing a most uncharacteristic regard for the proprieties. He was still in shock from the sight of her in men’s clothes.
    Victoria was no longer paying any attention to him, however. She was smiling at Annabella. “So you decided to turn down Barton’s offer, did you? I am happyto hear it. The man would have made you a perfectly horrid husband.”
    “I am convinced you are right,” Annabella shuddered delicately. “I might have been able to overlook Barton’s interest in hazard but just imagine marrying a man who has actually fathered two bastards on some poor woman to whom he will not give his name.”
    “It certainly casts a nasty reflection on his honor,” Victoria agreed grimly.
    Lucas studied her profile in the dim light. “Just how did you come to discover the business of Barton’s illegitimate offspring? I cannot believe that gossip reached your ears on the dance floor of a hostess such as Lady Atherton.”
    “No, it did not, as a matter of fact. I hired a runner to discover what he could about Barton and he was the one who turned up the news of the two children and the mistress.”
    Lucas felt a chill clutch his insides. “You hired a Bow