Taming Beauty by Lynne Barron Read Free Book Online

forearms on the iron balustrade and leaning over to expose the long line of her throat and the swell of her bosom. A thin stream of smoke rose from a black cheroot held between two long, pale fingers. “I’ve snuck off for a smoke, seeing as I thought it prudent not to further shock your guests by remaining with the gentleman in the dining room.”
    “I suspect you’ve never been accused of an excess of prudence,” Jasper replied even as he headed toward the spiral staircase at one corner of the old, white-washed structure he’d inhabited for the first year of his self-imposed exile.
    Laughter, low and sultry, drifted down from the balcony.
    He took the stairs at a leisurely pace, never mind the thundering of his heart and the lecherous thoughts racing through his mind. He could not act upon them, could not sweep the woman up in his arms and carry her through the open door into the same bedchamber he’d retreated to in humiliation all those years ago.
    He would not go back to that selfish existence, wallowing in his own degradation only to drown in the shame which was certain to follow. He’d learned his lesson—a hard, painful lesson he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
    “I do possess my own brand of prudence,” Miss Aberdeen said, watching his approach from the corner of her eye. “Learned by trial and error, as any good lesson ought to be learned.”
    Her words so mirrored his thoughts, he nearly stumbled over his own two big, clumsy feet. “Was it prudence that had you airing your family’s dirty linen at my dinner table?”
    “It was actually.” She took a slow pull on the cheroot and blew out three perfect little rings, quickly dispersed by the breeze. “And that linen was pristine compared to the stained unmentionables I might have waved about for your family and neighbors to ogle.”
    “You might as well share the rest of it with me,” he muttered, stopping an arm span away from her and leaning against the bannister, a wholly contrived negligent pose considering the tumult of lust coursing through him.
    “Whatever shall we talk about at dinner over the next twelve days if I don’t dole out the scandal a bit at a time?” she asked, looking out over the gardens, such as they were. “The wedding will take place in twelve days, will it not?”
    “It will,” he confirmed.
    “Would you care for one?” She lifted her hand to indicate the cheroot. “They are my own particular blend, rolled with my own nimble fingers.”
    “No.”
    “A nasty habit I only indulge once daily, after dinner. Prudence, and all that.”
    “I smoke a pipe on occasion.” Jasper could not have said why he offered up the information.
    “One of Gwendolyn’s lovers smoked a pipe,” she said with a smile. “Sir Malcolm used to allow me to pack it and light it for him. Cherry flavored tobacco, it was.”
    “How old were you?” What kind of life had she led that she spoke of her mother’s various protectors with fond remembrance.
    “Nine, perhaps ten. I suppose it matters not a whit whether Sissy is happy with the match?”
    It took Jasper a moment to find his place in the conversation once more. “Not a whit.”
    “I might have miscalculated,” she murmured, as if speaking to herself. “I hadn’t any idea you weren’t an exceedingly wealthy man.”
    Jasper didn’t need to ask how she’d deduced the sorry state of his finances. It was evident in the garden she couldn’t or wouldn’t look away from, in the worn carpets in every room and the skeletal staff scurrying about in a doomed attempt to see to the comfort of all his guests. “I beggared myself to raise the capital to buy Dunaway’s debts.”
    “I’d say you more than beggared yourself,” she countered. “If I am not much mistaken, you’ve well and truly buggered yourself.”
    Jasper barked out a laugh, rusty and gravelly from disuse.
    “Tell me, my lord, why did you do this foolish thing?”
    “I need a bride, seeing as your father stole mine away