The Contraband Courtship (The Arlingbys Book 2) by Alicia Quigley Read Free Book Online Page A

Helena.
    There was another pause. “Really, Lord Wroxton, is it that difficult to talk to me?” asked Helena abruptly. “I rather thought you came here for that purpose.”
    “I thought I did as well,” said Malcolm. “However, I did not expect to find I had encountered you earlier in the day, and that you had deceived me.”
    “I deceived you?” Helena felt herself flushing with annoyance. “You--you attacked me without a moment’s opportunity to explain!”
    “On the contrary, you denied that—that you—were about. You purposely misled me, for what purpose I can only imagine. Perhaps you wished me to kiss you.”
    Helena gasped. “As though I would wish for such a thing!”
    “You thought to entrap me somehow,” persisted Malcolm, not sure why he was pursuing this line of conversation. “I had no idea you were such a hoyden.”
    “I am not a hoyden!” Helena hissed fiercely, glancing at the pair standing next to them. “’Twas you who behaved improperly. As though I should have expected anything less from the Wicked Earl!”
    Malcolm’s lips twitched involuntarily. “The what?”
    Helena blinked. “The Wicked Earl,” she repeated.
    “Is that what they call me?” asked Malcolm, diverted.
    “Certainly,” Helena assured him. “We talk of little else hereabouts.”
    “You do?”
    “I do not,” Helena hastened to assure him. “I find the topic tedious. But surely you can understand why so many of my neighbors have an interest in you.”
    “I understand that many uninformed individuals find my story romantic,” allowed Malcolm. He regarded her closely. “Why do you find it tedious?”
    “Truly, I have no idea how you could have done something so stupid,” said Helena. “Gambling away a family heirloom, feuding with another gentleman, and then becoming accidentally involved in a murder plot. It hardly seems something an intelligent person would do.”
    “Think you so?” retorted Malcolm, stung. “Then perhaps I should ask you about your own situation; tell me how did your intelligence aid you when you were found in a compromising situation?”
    Helena turned pink. “How dare you say such a thing! I was sorely deceived.”
    “As was I. I fail to see why your situation is more worthy of sympathy than mine.”
    “I was not drunk in a gambling hell!”
    “No, you were kissing Denby in an anteroom,” said Malcolm bluntly.
    “I was doing no such thing!”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    Malcolm glared at her and she met his furious gaze with her own, her complexion heightened with annoyance. He could not help admiring the forthright way she met his eyes, and the challenge in her own. He realized he had gone too far, and that Miss Keighley was hurt and embarrassed. Why, he wondered, had he allowed her to provoke him so? It had been many years since a woman had managed to rouse him to anger.
    “Forgive me,” he said abruptly. “It was wrong of me to speak to you in that manner.”
    “It was unforgiveable.”
    “You did call me stupid,” Malcolm observed.
    “The facts of your case are well known,” said Helena flatly. “For you to mention my circumstances, which you do not understand, was ungentlemanly of you.”
    “It was indeed. I can only plead my annoyance at being constantly gossiped about, although it doesn’t excuse my lapse.”
    “No, it does not.” Helena’s voice was icy.
    Their turn had come again, and they spent the rest of the dance in a grim silence. Despite Malcolm’s attempts to cajole a remark out of her, Helena refused to speak to him, and when the dance wound its way to a close, she looked up at him, clearly still furious.
    He took her arm in his, and she reluctantly allowed him to escort her to a chair.
    “Come, Miss Keighley, you must at least pretend to forgive me, for I have come here at your behest to assist you. If you do not speak to me, you cannot tell me what I need to know about the smugglers.”
    “If you wait on me tomorrow—at my home, not in my