Tempting Bella (Entangled Scandalous) by Diana Quincy Read Free Book Online Page B

the woman from Claymont’s library?”
    Sebastian’s heart bucked. Following the direction of Pen’s gaze, he caught sight of her chatting animatedly with her companion. She wore a full-length cornflower-blue pelisse trimmed with steel-blue cording. The two of them strolled down the main walkway between the supper boxes at a leisurely pace, seeming to enjoy the amusements, pointing at something that caught their fancy. Irritation shot through Sebastian when he recognized her companion as the same cur who’d been with her at the opera. Orford. What else did they share while her addle-pated husband obviously sated his needs elsewhere?
    “She’s lovely,” remarked Basil to Pen. “Who is she?”
    Selwyn followed their gaze. “That’s Traherne’s daughter.”
    “I beg your pardon?” gasped Pen.
    “The Duke of Traherne’s daughter,” Selwyn said. “The one who inherits after her father’s passing. She’ll be the rarest of creatures, a duchess in her own right.”
    “That’s Mirabella Wentworth?” Basil’s mouth gaped like a fish on a hook. “How can you be certain?”
    “I met her at luncheon this afternoon. She’s a particular friend of my betrothed. They attended Miss Langdon’s School for Young Ladies together.” He glanced over at the woman with little real interest. “It’s no wonder you don’t recognize her. Lady Mirabella is known to few people in town. She grew up in the country and never had a season. The rumor is Traherne married her off as a child to settle a debt.”
    Basil elbowed Sebastian. “She doesn’t look plain or fat to me.”
    Sebastian barely heard him. The world tilted, upsetting all sense of balance and order. A volley of emotions bombarded him. Nothing made sense. And yet it made perfect sense.
    He watched his wife through a fog of incredulity. His wife! When she stopped to exchange pleasantries with someone, giving a smile that was a bit too saucy to be polite, his every nerve ending swelled with euphoria.
    “This,” he uttered after Selwyn left to rejoin his friends, “is most unexpected.”
    Pen guffawed, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll say.”
    A sense of exultation took root in him. She was his.
    She had been all along.
    Basil eyed him. “You are acquainted?”
    “Yes.” He answered somewhat absently returning his gaze to Mirabella. His wife. “Although I did not know it was she.” He watched her male companion take Mirabella’s elbow in a manner too proprietary for his liking. The way she smiled up at Orford, with obvious warmth glazing her eyes, made jealousy course through him.
    “She means something to you,” Basil said with dawning awareness. “Does she return your interest?”
    His gaze did not leave Mirabella. “I suppose you could say that.”
    Basil’s mouth broadened into a smile of genuine delight. “Perhaps your worries all these years will have been groundless.”
    A seed of mistrust took root in Sebastian, usurping his sense of surprised elation. Mirabella’s note just this afternoon claimed her return would be delayed. And yet, here she appeared, on the arm of another man. And she’d been in town for at least three days when he first spotted her at the opera. Perhaps even longer. She’d lied to him. Why? To spend a few more nights with her paramour?
    “Well, there is no time like the present,” Penrose quipped, raising his glass in salute. “Go introduce yourself and take your bride to bed.”
    Lust overtook Sebastian as that particular truth washed over him; the manly part of him stirred with impatience. He could have her in his bed this very night and take her as many times as he cared to. He would be well within his rights. But the haze of lust gave way to burgeoning anger. Reality tempered his baser instincts, forcing the return of his senses. His wife could not be trusted. She’d lied to him about her return. He wondered what other things she would be deceitful about. Who was she really? What were her intentions toward