The Dangerous Duke by Arabella Sheraton Read Free Book Online Page A

him. Lady Penelope twisted her tiny embroidered handkerchief into knots, splitting the cambric and tearing the fragile material to shreds.
    Damn you, Deverell. She gritted her teeth with silent anger. She simmered with frustration, her nerves raggedly on edge, her emotions a powder keg of rage, waiting to explode at the slightest provocation.
    “Why so pensive, Pen?” Sir Marcus Solesby asked, lolling on a green velvet-covered chaise lounge .
    “Don’t call me that!” she snapped, whirling round on him like a cornered tigress. Her lips were tight and her fine eyes narrowed to slits. Scarlet patches burned on her cheeks. Sir Marcus blinked and sat up a little. A calculating person himself, her sudden outburst of emotion was out of character for a woman he always reckoned had a stone for a heart.
    “Deverell’s put you in a huff?”
    His question was cautious. Lady Penelope turned her back on him and stared out the window again, taking slow breaths to regain her shattered composure. She hated losing control of herself, which was how she felt at that precise moment…as if she was losing control of Devlin and of the future she had so meticulously planned.
    A year ago, Lady Penelope had designed a careful campaign to keep the bored and rakish Duke intrigued and captivated. Devlin Deverell’s legendary reputation as a breaker of female hearts had forewarned her.
    First, she had ensnared him with artful coquetry and flirtatious repartee. Then, with a subtle combination of seduction and rejection, she had managed to achieve what all other females had failed to do thus far—keep the Duke both interested and returning for more. He was never sure of her since she often refused to see him on a whim, and that was the lure. He never felt he entirely knew her or completely possessed her. Other women—and there had been many—had surrendered their all, and far too soon. Lady Penelope kept him guessing whereas other females had bored him after a while.
    She had been so sure of herself and now this absence of her lover knocked her self-confidence awry. There was a hollow emptiness in her breast and a feeling of panic she could not still.
    What could have kept him in the country, she asked herself for the thousandth time, and for so long? However, she would rather have cut her tongue out than inquire of his friends. Whenever people asked about the Duke’s absence, Lady Penelope smiled in an enigmatic way, as if she alone shared a secret, intimate knowledge with Devlin. No one would guess how she felt a constant cold chill in the pit of her stomach, as if she sensed something was afoot.
    Was there someone else?
    Impossible!
    Lady Penelope thought of the Duke, of their lusty and passionate couplings that left her in no doubt he was besotted with her body and with her imaginative sexual acts. Lady Penelope was not shy between the sheets and this made her both enticing and unattainable. Her prodigious sexual appetite and uninhibited desires were compelling. Devlin had never been able to resist her tempting charms before so where in Heaven’s name was he?
    * * * *
    Sir Marcus helped himself to a glass of ratafia while he waited for her composure to return. He sipped the golden liquid, flinching a little at its apricot sweetness, but reasoned that any alcohol was better than none. He studied his hostess with his hooded, pale-green cat’s eyes. In his early forties, he was tall and long-limbed with a careless elegance. Born of an excellent family and with substantial money behind him, Sir Marcus had unfortunately indulged himself too often and too deeply. Lines of dissipation and a sallow complexion gave him a bored, sardonic look, which marred an otherwise handsome face. Despite his wealth, an intelligent brain and an acerbic wit, it was his notorious reputation, his rampant appetite for novel carnal entertainments and sexual delights, as well as his low-class chosen associates that labelled him as de trop . No self-respecting Mama